


Ender Curse

by Qille



Series: The Vengeance Series [2]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Blood, Gen, Suspense, Swearing, Violence, extreme danger, lots of mutilation, no time for romance here, this is probably my favorite thing I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 49,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qille/pseuds/Qille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Xephos, Honeydew, Lalna, Sips, and Sjin wake up to find themselves trapped in a strange and unstable world with no means of escape, they try to stay calm and survive. When they realize there's a monster in the woods that's hunting them, however, things get a bit more dangerous, and it's possible that not everybody will live through this adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mutant

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically the first official story of the Vengeance universe. This story is thirteen chapters of blood, violence, swearing, and the constant paranoid feeling that something is looking at you as you read this.

Xephos gasped and snapped his eyes open. He sat bolt upright and looked around, dazed and confused.

“What in the...”

Quickly, he got to his feet and looked around. He was in the middle of a wide open grassy plains area with nothing around for what seemed like miles. He turned full circle and spotted a forest to the north. It only looked to be half a mile away. He turned again, and far to the south, he could see a range of enormous mountains. He could also see a large lake with several rivers to the west, close to the forest.

“Where am I...” muttered Xephos. This wasn't any world he had ever seen before. And he didn't remember coming to this world either. So how did he get here?

And then he realized something that terrified him more than spawning in this strange new world with no memory of how he had gotten here.

He was alone.

Immediately, he became nervous and checked over his shoulder, expecting a skeleton or Creeper to come sneaking up on him while there was no one to watch his back. It was like when he landed on the planet all over again. He was alone, scared, and he couldn't remember how he got here.

“Where the bloody hell is Honeydew...?” he muttered to himself nervously, his glowing blue eyes darting around.

No sooner did he say the name than something landed on him, knocking him to the ground.

“Xephos!” exclaimed Honeydew.

The spaceman responded with a groan. “Get off me...” Even though the dwarf was only half his size, he was twice as heavy.

“Right, right, sorry,” said Honeydew, climbing off of his friend. “So uh... where the hell are we exactly?”

“No idea, friend,” said Xephos, pulling himself to his feet and dusting himself off, much more confident and comfortable now that Honeydew was with him.

“Is anybody else here?”

“Not that I can tell,” said Xephos with a small shrug. In fact, he was even having trouble sensing that Honeydew was here. “Maybe we should-”

He was cut off by a sharp scream, followed immediately by the _thump_ of something hitting the ground. They both whipped around to see another figure lying sprawled on the ground about 10 meters to the north. They quickly ran over to see what had happened.

“Fuck, rough landing...” muttered Lalna, sitting up with a grimace. “I think I landed on my head.”

“Lalna!” exclaimed Honeydew. “What are you doing here?”

Lalna looked around, confused. “Uh... not sure, actually. What are you doing here? Where is _here_?”

“New world,” said Xephos, holding out his hand and helping the disoriented scientist to his feet. “Neither of us can remember how we got here either.”

“Is anybody else here?” asked Lalna, looking around and taking in the landscape.

“Not that we've seen,” said Xephos with a slight shrug.

Lalna nodded and looked up at the sky. “Okay, well at least it's still early,” he said. “We should probably start building a base or something.”

“Okay, well let's head to the forest and see what we can find,” suggested Xephos.

They agreed, and they began the long walk towards the dark forest. However, when they reached the forest, none of them had a chance to say anything before a loud scream sounded from within the trees.

Not a second later, Sips and Sjin came barreling out of the forest, being chased by a small hoard of angry spiders.

Lalna and Xephos grabbed some sticks that were lying on the ground, and they poked the spiders in the eyes and beat them back. Honeydew and the two spacemen had already dug themselves holes in the ground to hide in.

After a minute of beating and poking, the spiders turned and ran off, back into the forest.

“Well that was exciting,” grumbled Xephos, dropping the stick and wiping a bit of blood off of his arm. He also realized that there were several spider bites on his legs as well. “Ugh, gross...”

“Aw, I got blood on my lab coat,” said Lalna, sounding disappointed as he examined a tear in the bottom hem of his slightly bloodstained coat.

“You can fix it or wash it later,” said Xephos. He then turned around to face the three small patches of dirt in the ground.

“The spiders are gone, you can come out now.”

A moment later, Honeydew, Sips, and Sjin dug themselves out of the holes and stood in front of Xephos and Lalna.

“What the hell happened?” exclaimed Xephos. “How did you manage to piss off a bunch of spiders in the middle of the day?”

“Well, Sjin and I just spawned in,” said Sips, “and we landed right in the middle of the spider nest.”

“So we... panicked,” finished Sjin.

Lalna rolled his eyes a bit and looked up at the sky. “Uh, it's almost noon,” he said. “We should probably get moving. How about this. Xephos, Honeydew, and Sips, you three go find supplies. Y'know, like food and tools and anything else we need to survive the night. Sjin and I will build a base.”

And so the plan commenced. Xephos, Honeydew, and Sips made wooden tools and went off to look around, and Lalna and Sjin cut down dozens of trees to get materials.

They slowly built a large shelter, about twenty blocks tall and large enough on the inside for everyone to have their own rooms. It was made entirely out of wooden planks and logs and an obscene amount of upside-down stairs courtesy of Sjin. They both would have preferred to make it out of a stronger material, but they didn't have any. They would have to reinforce it as soon as possible. Not only that, but the house didn't have windows or anything inside, because they lacked all the materials.

Sjin and Lalna had been working on the roof for a while when Lalna lost his footing. He slipped and pitched right off the roof with a sharp yelp. Sjin heard him hit the ground.

“Lalna!” exclaimed Sjin, climbing down a ladder on the side of the building. He reached his friend a moment later.

A fall like that should have killed him, but Lalna was still breathing. There was a bit of blood trickling down his face. A second later, he opened his eyes, looking dazed. Sjin helped him sit up.

“That hurt...” coughed Lalna, winded from landing flat on his back. He wiped the blood off and looked up at where he had just fallen from. “Wait, why didn't that kill me?”

“No idea,” said Sjin. “Are you even hurt?”

Lalna shook his head a bit and grimaced. “Not really...” he coughed. “Just a really bad headache.”

Sjin shook his head a bit. “So what made you fall anyways?”

Lalna shrugged. “I don't know. I just... had the feeling we were being watched.”

Little did they know, they were. And the thing that was watching them was the same thing that buffered Lalna's fall and kept him from snapping his neck.

**XXX**

Honeydew, Xephos, and Sips were down in the mines – the dwarf was leading the way, while Xephos placed torches, and Sips kept a lookout for monsters while simultaneously making an innuendo about everything, which he always did when he was nervous.

They already had a large amount of iron, but no gems yet.

“Do you think there's a cave system somewhere nearby?” Xephos asked as they continued down. They had found several small caves and tunnels already, but none of them led anywhere.

“There has to be!” exclaimed Honeydew. “I can feel it in my beard.”

“Which one?” asked Sips. He started to giggle but suddenly stopped and looked around. “Hang on guys, I think I heard a zombie.”

“Oh I'm sure it's nothing,” said Honeydew cheerfully.

The group took another turn and saw that the cave led to another dead end.

“Well I guess that's it then,” said Xephos. “We should probably turn around.”

“Just one more second Xeph,” said Honeydew. “There's one more thing I want to try.”

He cleared his throat before violently attacking the wall with his pickaxe and loudly screaming that he was a dwarf and he was digging a hole.

The second he finished his song, a bit of rock fell away, exposing a small cave that led about three feet ahead before stopping.

“Well that didn't work out so well...” muttered Honeydew, turning around and walking back towards the exit. Xephos, however, walked towards the small cave.

“Now hold on,” he said. “Maybe there's something in here, like another opening or something.”

He slowly stepped into the cave a bit, but he saw nothing. Finally, he shrugged and turned around to face Honeydew and Sips.

“Guess not,” he said.

Suddenly, a look of fear washed over Honeydew and Sips' faces.

“Xeph!” exclaimed Honeydew, pointing behind him.

Xephos whipped around and came face to face with a Creeper.

“SHIT!”

_BOOM_

The Creeper exploded, sending Xephos flying backwards, where Honeydew caught him before he hit the ground.

“Xephos? Are you okay?” exclaimed Honeydew, carefully lowering his friend to the ground.

Xephos groaned. His face was covered in soot, his nose was bleeding, his ears were ringing, and his hands and arms were burnt, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

“I'm fine,” he coughed, having trouble breathing from both the blast and the dust and smoke.

“We should probably get out of here,” said Honeydew, looking around. Then he noticed something. “Wait, where's Sips?”

“Up here.”

They both looked up and saw Sips clinging to the ceiling of the cave.

“The fuck are you doing up there?” asked Honeydew.

“I don't know, but I'm very scared,” said Sips.

Honeydew rolled his eyes and climbed on top of a few large rocks. He then poked Sips with a stick until he lost his grip on whatever he was holding and fell, landing right on his bottom.

After Sips stood up, he and Honeydew helped Xephos to his feet, but then Honeydew saw something.

The Creeper explosion had blown a hole in the wall, and beyond it, they could see lava, and some gems.

“Hold on,” said Honeydew, walking towards the hole in the wall.

It led to an enormous underground chasm, which was littered with valuables and ores.

After picking his jaw up off the floor, he quickly used a bit of stone and dirt to cover the lava on the ground and ran back to Xephos and Sips.

“I think we found the cave we were looking for,” he said happily. Then he turned and ran back into the chasm.

**XXX**

Back on the surface, Lalna and Sjin had finished the outside of the house. Sjin was busy working on the inside of the house, so Lalna headed into the forest to look for some animals. He only managed to find a couple pigs and cows and a single chicken, but it would be enough to get them through the night without complaining.

As he searched for another chicken or two, he heard a very distinct noise.

An Enderman was nearby.

He froze, staring at the ground in case it was in front of him. Slowly, he reached up and lowered his goggles over his eyes. That way he would be able to look at the Enderman without aggravating it.

Slowly, he looked around for the creature. Then he found it.

It was in the center of a clearing, hunched over, eating something. But it was much larger than any Enderman he had ever seen before.

Suddenly, the beast whipped around. It was too dark under the thick tree canopy for Lalna to see it clearly, but he could see the glowing purple eyes. The thing had been eating a pig.

Slowly, the beast stood to its full height. It was at least three times as tall as Lalna, and twice as tall as a normal Enderman.

The beast simply stared at him for a while. This was the most unnerving part. It was almost like it was observing him in the same way he was observing it. It was intelligent. Lalna suddenly regretted allowing it to see his face. He had a bad feeling that it would remember him.

This went on for another minute before the Enderman turned, picked up the half-eaten pig, and teleported away.

Lalna stared at the spot it had been for half a second before turning and running full speed out of the forest and back to the safety of the house, pulling his goggles down around his neck as a sudden pain shot through his head.

He returned at the same time as Xephos, Honeydew, and Sips.

“Whoa, what are you being chased by?” exclaimed Sips when Lalna ran out of the forest, almost slamming into them.

Lalna shook his head and doubled over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. “I'm... fine...” he coughed out. “Just... got the... shit... scared... out of me...”

“By what?” asked Xephos, glancing over Lalna's shoulder to see if he could see what had scared the scientist.

“Giant... Enderman...” said Lalna, slowly regaining his ability to breathe as he calmed down.

“A giant Enderman?” asked Honeydew skeptically. “Are you sure you didn't just hit your head or something?”

“Actually, he did fall off the roof a while ago,” said Sjin, who had been watching the conversation from the doorway. “Landed right on his head.”

“Well there ya go,” said Sips. “You were probably just hallucinating.”

“What? No, I wasn't hallucinating,” exclaimed Lalna, shaking his head. “I know what I saw!”

“Are you sure?” asked Sjin. “I mean, you hit your head really hard, and you _were_ bleeding earlier.”

Lalna finally stood upright and looked at Xephos and Honeydew. “You guys believe me, right?”

Honeydew and Xephos exchanged a glance but said nothing.

Lalna felt his heart sink. “You don't... you don't believe me?”

An awkward silence filled the small clearing by the forest. All they could hear was the far sound of the wind and the distant sound of crickets.

Lalna's eyes widened when he realized that he could hear crickets. He looked up at the sky and realized with a shot of terror that night was falling. Any minute now, the mobs would come. And Lalna knew the bigger Enderman would be with them.

“Okay, everybody inside,” ordered Xephos. “ _Now_!”

They all went inside the large house and gathered in what looked like it was going to be a kitchen. Honeydew threw down some furnaces, and Xephos began to scatter torches around all the rooms. Lalna quickly got to work arranging the meat he had scavenged in the furnaces, mainly to keep himself occupied. The others started making weapons with the materials they had dug up.

“Okay, we've gotta keep the mobs away from the house,” said Lalna, nervous at the damage they could cause.

“Why don't we just stay inside and wait until morning?” asked Xephos as he examined his new diamond sword, experimentally swinging it.

“Because there's nothing standing between us and some zombies but a wooden door,” said Lalna.

“It's mahogany,” said Sjin.

“Oh for fuck's sake, not this again,” muttered Sips.

“Also,” Lalna cut in, “this entire building is made of flammable material. Any burning skeleton or zombie could set it off. So could a Creeper explosion. Hell, Honeydew could probably burn the whole place down in his sleep.”

“What do you mean by that?” exclaimed Honeydew. “I don't even have a-” He stopped, realizing something. Then he looked up at Xephos. “Did you take my flint and steel?”

Lalna rolled his eyes and started to speak, but he was cut off by a strange noise. It sounded like a distant roar that was slowly getting louder.

“What the hell is that?” exclaimed Xephos.

“C'mon,” said Sjin, leading the group towards a set of stairs that led to the roof. They reached a small, dimly lit platform built into the roof, and they looked out towards the mountains.

“Oh shit...” they all muttered at the exact same time.

Coming towards them was literally an army of mobs. The roaring noise was their cacophony of groans, growls, hisses, and other various noises.

“Well, we're fucked,” said Sips.

“Maybe... maybe if we... if we split up and draw the mobs away from each other,” stammered Xephos, “there might be a chance that none of us die tonight.”

“Are you out of your bloody mind?” exclaimed Honeydew. “There's a million mobs down there!”

“Well, what choice do we have other than sitting inside and waiting for them to tear the house to pieces?” exclaimed Xephos. “C'mon. Let's go get tooled up.”

Lalna sighed nervously, his eyes scanning the army for the larger silhouette of the monster from the forest. It was nowhere to be seen. He really did hope it was a hallucination.

He shook his head a bit. “I think it's going to be a long night...”

**XXX**

Swords were crafted. Armor was made. Food was prepared. Sips and Sjin were the best archers, so they were given bows made using the string Xephos and Lalna got from killing several of the spiders earlier. They didn't have many arrows though; only ten, five for each. Hopefully they would get more after killing some skeletons.

“Okay, is everybody ready?” asked Xephos, trying to hide his nervousness, even though his pale face and slightly trembling hands gave him away.

He was met with tense nods, as everybody gripped their weapons. He and Sjin both had diamond swords, while Sips had a sapphire one, Honeydew had a ruby one, and Lalna had an emerald one. Everybody had iron chest plates and helmets.

They were ready.

The roaring of the monsters grew louder every second.

They were out of time.

With a gulp, Xephos opened the door, and they all ran out; Lalna, being the last one out, closed the door firmly behind him.

They ran out towards the horde of monsters, spreading out and leaving about ten meters between one another. They faced the oncoming monsters.

The mobs seemed to have their own plan.

They suddenly charged, but as they did, they shifted. All of the zombies suddenly ran towards Sips. The Creepers all went for Sjin, the spiders went for Honeydew, who looked like he was about to cry, and the skeletons attacked Xephos.

All of the Endermen went for Lalna.

His face drained of all color, he ran forward and met the Endermen halfway. Almost instantly, he lost sight of his friends as he charged into the group of pissed off Endermen.

By some divine intervention, it seemed, he was able to take out four of them before one of them scored a hit. When it did hit him, the impact knocked the wind out of him. If he hadn't been wearing his armor, the Enderman's claws would have torn right through his back.

Soon, he was overwhelmed. However, before the Endermen could tear him apart, there was a loud explosion, and some of the Endermen dropped. Lalna looked up to see Sjin being chased by Creepers. However, he was clever enough to run right through the other hordes of monsters and provoke the Creepers into exploding. The explosions were killing most of the mobs.

Two more explosions took out several more Endermen, leaving few enough for Lalna to handle. He took them out quickly, and he turned to go help Xephos, who was having some serious trouble with the skeletons. The poor spaceman was barely able to stand, covered in arrow wounds. Sips was already over there helping, and Sjin was directing the Creepers towards the skeletons. Honeydew looked to be covered in web, but almost finished with the spiders.

Lalna pulled his goggles off of his eyes and started to run over when he heard the sound of an Enderman teleporting behind him. He whipped around and was so shocked that he almost dropped his sword.

The giant Enderman was back.

Lalna gulped and adjusted his goggles on his head, not bothering to pull them back down over his eyes. His helmet had been destroyed, and his chest plate was almost completely broken as well.

Then, in the light of the full moon, Lalna was finally able to get a good look at the beast. It was covered in marks and scars. Because it was freakishly tall, it was also freakishly thin, and he could see almost every bone in it's body. It's skin looked mutated and disfigured.

It was an abomination. 

The giant snarled and lunged at Lalna, viciously swinging it's massive claws at him. He lunged forward and stabbed at the beast's legs, avoiding the blow. The monster let out a sharp cry before kicking Lalna back. The kick alone took a chunk of his armor off.

Lalna scrambled to his feet just in time to take a blow to the chest. The claws shattered his chest plate, leaving him vulnerable and exposed. He stumbled away, gasping for breath.

Suddenly, it teleported away. He spun around in a circle, but he couldn't see where it went.

Looking at the sky, he saw that the full moon was slowly sinking towards the horizon; dawn was approaching, and all but a few skeletons were dead.

Slowly, Lalna lowered his sword.

Then he heard it teleport behind him. He whipped around, but he was too late.

The beast took one last swipe at him. This one hit home.

The claws dug into the right side of his chest and stomach, sinking deep into his flesh.

Lalna let out a bone-chilling scream and dropped to the ground, dropping his sword and clutching the wound. Blood spilled out past his hands, staining his lab coat and pooling on the ground beneath him.

“Lalna!” screamed Honeydew.

The others watched in horror as the mutant Enderman stood tall over the fallen scientist. It looked at all of them with hauntingly intelligent eyes before teleporting away.

Nobody moved for a second, but a whimper from Lalna seemed to snap everybody out of the trance.

Honeydew stayed with Xephos, who was losing blood from the arrows sticking out of his back and chest, and Sips and Sjin ran over to Lalna.

The poor scientist was curled up on the ground, both arms wrapped around the injury. His eyes were wide open but unfocused, he was deathly pale, and he was trembling and gasping for breath.

Sjin knelt down in front of him and gently put his hand on his shoulder.

“Lalna, blink twice if you can hear me,” he said.

Lalna didn't move.

“That's not good,” said Sips hurriedly. “What do we do?!”

“Let's try and get him inside,” said Sjin.

“Okay, but how do we move him?” asked Sips, gesturing to the gaping wound on his side.

“Um...” Sjin looked around and saw that Honeydew and Xephos were already halfway across the field. He knew that soon Honeydew would be back to help though.

Then he got an idea. He quickly drew a crafting grid in the dirt and used sticks and some string he had picked up from the spiders to create a stretcher.

“Okay, this should work,” said Sjin, laying the stretcher down next to Lalna, who was now completely unconscious and losing blood fast.

Sips and Sjin moved Lalna onto the stretcher and picked it up. Lalna only grimaced a bit.

They made it back to the house at the same time as Honeydew, who was practically dragging Xephos.

Just as they reached the door, the sun came up.


	2. Scratches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of a battle is always rough. Guess it's even worse if your opponent is almost 20 feet tall.

It was about midday, and Lalna still hadn't woken up.

Xephos was sitting next to his friend, who was sleeping feverishly. The bandages on Lalna's bare chest were already bloodstained, and his fever was much higher than it had been that morning.

With a sigh, he leaned back against the wall before wincing and sitting forward again. The arrow wounds on his back and chest were hurting him again, especially when he tried to breathe deeply.

Xephos looked across the room at Sjin, who was sitting against the opposite wall, writing in a book. He had also been injured while fighting the Creepers. He had rolled his ankle while running, and he had several nasty burns on his back and legs. Honeydew and Sips were the only ones who hadn't been seriously injured, so they were outside. They had torched up the place to prevent the mobs from spawning nearby, and now they were looking for resources.

Because they didn't have any wool, they didn't have any beds. This brought Xephos' mind back to Lalna, who was lying on the floor. They had used his lab coat as a pillow, folding it up and placing it under his head.

“Do you think they'll find anything?” Xephos asked Sjin.

Sjin looked up, slightly startled by the sudden voice after all the silence. “What? I mean, I'm sure they'll find something,” he said with a shrug. “I really hope they find some sheep, or at least some sand. We could really use some windows in here.”

Xephos nodded a bit before slowly and painfully standing up. “I think I'm gonna make an iron door,” he said. “It's not like it'll do much against Creepers and Endermen, but at least it'll keep the zombies out for good.”

Sjin nodded and went back to writing in his book.

Xephos stumbled over to the crafting table and hurriedly made an iron door, lever, and pressure plate. Then he realized it was too much work to replace the door, and he was getting dizzy from standing too long, so he quickly put the items in a chest before stumbling back to his place next to Lalna.

The poor scientist was gasping for breath, his face pale and sweaty. Xephos reached into a nearby chest and pulled out a bucket of water along with a few pieces of leftover string, which he combined into a piece of cloth. He dipped the cloth into the bucket, wrung it out, and laid it on Lalna's forehead. Lalna seemed to relax a bit, and his breathing became slightly less labored.

Xephos sighed, but the sigh triggered a harsh coughing fit, and by the time it was over, the taste of blood had welled up in his mouth.

Exhausted and in pain from everything that had happened, Xephos closed his eyes.

Only to have Honeydew and Sips barge in.

“Guys, we found sheep!” exclaimed Honeydew happily. “We've got enough to make some beds now.”

“Yeah, and we also raided a village and stole all their crops, so now they're gonna starve to death,” said Sips happily.

“Good for you,” said Xephos weakly. “Now will you please make at least one bed? If we leave Lalna on the floor, his wound might get infected.”

Within an hour, they all had beds in their own rooms. Sips and Honeydew took the upstairs rooms, seeing as they were the only two who could actually use the stairs at the moment, while Xephos and Sjin took the downstairs rooms. They also moved Lalna into his bed in the third downstairs room, which was much cleaner than the floor. However, just to be safe, Xephos refreshed his bandages and cleaned the wound all over again to make sure it wasn't infected. However, just as he was finishing with the bandages, he thought he saw something. For just a split second, something inside each of the three deep gashes on Lalna's side glowed purple.

Xephos stopped and blinked, but it was gone, whatever it was. With a sigh, he finished bandaging his friend. He had probably been hallucinating when he saw the flash of purple. After all, he had a fever as well, and he had lost a lot of blood and sleep the previous night. Many of his wounds had begun to heal, but the ones on his back and chest were still fresh, and just as painful.

Xephos painfully stood up and walked back out into the main room of the house. It was starting to get late, and Honeydew had already replaced the front door with the iron door.

By now, everybody was in bed, but Xephos limped over to the newly implemented windows and looked out across the fields towards the mountains. The whole area was lit by the blue light of the waning moon, which had been full the previous night. Only a few mobs were out there, mainly zombies and spiders. There was also a small number of Creepers and skeletons, but he couldn't see any Endermen.

Good thing, too. He knew Lalna would probably have nightmares for weeks. If only they had listened to him about the giant Enderman...

With a painful sigh, Xephos turned and slowly made his way back to his room.

**XXX**

Lalna slowly blinked his eyes open. He was dazed, confused, and completely dehydrated, not to mention starving.

That was when he noticed the voices around him.

“Lalna? Can you hear me?” That was Xephos.

“It looks like he's coming around.” That voice belonged to Sjin.

Finally, Lalna was able to focus his sight. He could see Xephos and Sjin standing over him, both of them wide-eyed with concern. However, their concern changed into relief when they saw him fully open his eyes.

“Guys?” coughed Lalna, his voice raw from disuse. “Wha- AH!” Lalna started to sit up, but just the small movement sent an icy stab of pain across his chest and stomach. A second later, he felt nauseous, like he might throw up.

“Take it easy friend,” said Xephos, dabbing his forehead with a cool cloth while Sjin gently held him down to keep him from aggravating the wounds.

“What happened?” Lalna asked quietly, his eyes drifting down towards where the pain was coming from. He couldn't see what was causing it, however, because of the blanket that someone had thrown over him.

“You were right about the giant Enderman,” said Sjin. “... Unfortunately.”

Lalna was quiet for a moment as all of the memories of the battle trickled back into his mind. He remembered fighting the giant monster, and he remembered it slicing him open with its claws. Everything after that was a blur.

“What happened to you two afterwards?” asked Lalna. “And where are Honeydew and Sips?”

“We're fine,” said Xephos hurriedly. “And Honeydew is mining, and Sips is outside making a farm.”

Lalna raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you guys are fine?” he asked. “Because last thing I remember, Sjin was being chased by about a million Creepers, and you got turned into an alien pincushion.”

Xephos shrugged, but Lalna saw him wince at the movement.

“You guys are still hurt, aren't you?” asked Lalna. “That's why you're still in here.”

“Well, I'm almost completely healed,” said Sjin. “Just have to wait for my ankle to heal.”

Lalna looked over to Xephos, who avoided eye contact. “I uh... I should be done healing soon...” he said.

Lalna sighed. “How is it that you nearly got blown up by Creepers,” he said to Sjin, “and you got shot a million times by skeletons,” he said to Xephos, “but _I'm_ the one that you guys are worried about? I mean, it's just a scratch. It's no big deal.”

Xephos and Sjin exchanged a nervous look.

“What...?” asked Lalna apprehensively. 

“Lalna...” said Xephos, “you've been in a coma for almost five days now.”

Lalna slowly shook his head. “No, that... that can't be right... It's just a scratch...”

They were quiet for a moment before a thought popped into Lalna's head.

“Hold on,” he said. “A minute ago you said Honeydew is mining. Why is he by himself, especially when it's so dangerous? And what's he even looking for? We've got plenty of materials.”

“He's looking for obsidian so we can make a portal to the Nether,” said Xephos.

“Why?” asked Lalna. “What's so important about going to the Nether?”

“We need to go there to get stuff for potions,” said Sjin.

“But why do you guys need potions?”

“Because you're not healing!” exclaimed Xephos.

Lalna looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, Xephos looked up at Sjin, who was standing on the other side of the bed. “Help me sit him up.”

Sjin nodded, and he and Xephos gently helped Lalna into a sitting position. The blanket fell away from his chest, and he could see the bandages, which were bloodstained.

Sjin started to cut away the soiled bandages, while Xephos prepared new ones.

As soon as the bandages fell away, Lalna almost gagged. The skin around the wound was swollen and red, with a few streaks of black radiating out. The wound itself was leaking a bit of blood and pus and some sort of black liquid. The wound stretched across his side just above his right hip and extended all the way up to the center of his chest.

Xephos dabbed at the wound with a wet cloth, and whatever was on the cloth – some sort of disinfectant or alcohol, probably – caused the wound to sting, drawing out a hiss of pain from Lalna. However, a moment later, the wound and the area around it went numb, and most of the pain disappeared.

While Xephos began bandaging the wound, Sjin left the room, walking with a limp. He returned a moment later with a glass water bottle and a bowl of stew. Without a word, he set the glass and the bowl on a table next to the bed, then he left.

A few minutes later, Xephos finished bandaging Lalna's wounds.

“There,” he said. “That should be a bit more comfortable.”

“Thanks...” said Lalna quietly. His mind was so distracted as he tried to think of a way he could invent something to cure his infection that he didn't realize Xephos was speaking to him.

“Come again?”

“I said take it slow,” said Xephos, holding out the glass bottle and bowl. “You haven't eaten in days, so go slow. The last thing we need is for you to be sick.”

Lalna quickly took the bottle and gulped it down, forcing himself to drink slower. It wasn't hard though, because the water burned his raw throat.

“Here,” said Xephos, taking the glass and handing him the bowl. “Make sure you eat all of it. Sjin put some medicine in it. It should help lower your fever and slow the infection down. It'll also help with the pain, so you'll be able to sleep through the night.”

“Why do I need sleep?” asked Lalna, pausing with the spoon hovering over the bowl. “I've been asleep for about five days according to you.”

“Yes, but you weren't sleeping deeply,” said Xephos. “The fever and pain kept preventing you from getting any actual sleep. I can tell, you're even tired now.”

Lalna raised an eyebrow, but he realized he was tired. And he had only eaten a bit of the stew, but he was already starting to feel better.

“Keep eating,” said Xephos. “I'll be back in to check on you in a bit.” With that, he painfully stood up from his seat and left the room, doing his best to hide his limp.

Lalna quickly finished off the stew, and by the time the bowl was empty, he was so exhausted he was barely able to keep his eyes open. He clumsily put the bowl on the table before sliding back down into a more comfortable position, this time hardly feeling any pain. He pulled the blanket up to his chin, enjoying the warmth, even though it probably wasn't good for his fever.

Just before he went to sleep, he looked out the window. It was almost noon.

_Since when did we have windows?_ was the last thought that went through Lalna's mind before he fell asleep.

**XXX**

The next time Lalna awoke, it was the middle of the night. He could see the new moon through the window.

He could tell Xephos or one of the others had checked on him recently, because the bowl was gone, the glass of water had been refilled, and there was a cold rag resting on his head.

He started to feel some discomfort from his side, but before he could register the pain, he let himself fall asleep again.

**XXX**

Lalna woke up the next morning feeling better. He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, grimacing in pain as he did so. He reached for the glass of water, but he found it difficult to hold on to. When he did finally manage to take a drink, it burned his throat even more than the previous day and offered him no hydration.

Slowly, he sat all the way up, feeling dizzy as he did so.

Turning to the side, he let his legs hang over the edge of his bed until his bare feet touched the floor. And even though he knew it was a bad idea, he slowly stood up.

For a moment, the pain blinded him, and he had to keep a death grip on his bed to keep from falling over.

Finally, the pain subsided a bit, and he was able to walk. He was still incredibly stiff from not moving for days, but as he walked, he seemed to be regaining his motor skills.

After stretching his legs for a solid ten minutes, he decided he was hungry. He grabbed his lab coat, which had been washed and patched up, and he carefully put it on, the action stretching the wound and sending another shard of pain through his lungs. He didn't bother to button it up, seeing as it was too much work, and the bandages concealed most of his bare chest anyways.

Slowly, he left his room, looking around. He didn't see any of the others.

He quietly went into the kitchen and found a bowl and some mushrooms. He quickly whipped up a fresh bowl of stew, and as he walked back towards his room with it, he stopped and grabbed an apple of out a chest.

Once he was back in his room, he quickly devoured the stew before turning to the apple. However, instead of eating it like a normal human being, he bit into it and sucked all the juice out of it. The fruity juice soothed his burning throat while quenching his thirst at the same time.

Lalna left his room again to return the bowl. That was when he noticed movement outside the window. He started to move over to look, but at that moment, the door opened, and Xephos and Honeydew walked in.

Xephos was the first one to notice Lalna, and he was caught by surprise, not expecting the scientist to be up and around.

“Dammit Lalna, you scared the hell out of me!” he exclaimed.

“Sorry?” said Lalna, not bothering to hide his smile.

“Lalna!” exclaimed Honeydew. “You're not dead!”

“What are you doing wandering around?” asked Xephos, noticing how he was dressed.

Lalna shrugged. “I was hungry, I got bored, I didn't hear anybody moving around... Where were you guys anyways?”

“We were helping Sips and Sjin set up a farm near the river,” said Honeydew. “Which reminds me...” He quickly dashed to a chest and grabbed a bucket from within before running back out the door.

“So I see you're feeling better,” said Xephos.

Lalna nodded. “Yeah, it doesn't hurt as bad as it did last night.”

“Good,” said Xephos. “I hope that means it's healing.”

Lalna nodded a bit, but the action suddenly sent a shard of pain through his head.

“Are you okay?” asked Xephos, noticing the grimace on Lalna's face.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” muttered Lalna, squeezing his eyes shut as the throbbing in his head increased, growing louder and more painful with each heartbeat. “I just think I... need to... lie back down...”

He staggered back towards his room, and it took him a moment to realize that Xephos was right next to him, helping him in case he fell.

“I can handle it from here,” he said once they reached the door to his room.

Xephos nodded. “Shout if you need anything.”

Lalna gave him a weak thumbs up before closing the door. Now, not only was his head aching, his stomach was twisting too. It wasn't enough to make him feel nauseous, but it made him uncomfortable. 

He looked up across his room. His bed was almost as far from the door as possible.

Lalna sighed and closed his eyes. He took one step forward...

… and hit his shin on the edge of his bed.

With a gasp, he opened his eyes and saw that he was standing right next to his bed. He also noticed that his headache and stomach pains had disappeared.

Slowly, he turned around. The door was more than eight blocks away from his bed. There was no way he would have been able to move that quickly in only one step, especially in his condition.

“What the hell?” he muttered, utterly confused. However, a moment later, dizziness swept over him, and he had to sit down to keep from falling over. He gingerly pulled his lab coat off and tossed it on a chair next to his bed. Then he laid down and was asleep almost instantly.

**XXX**

When he woke up again, it was the middle of the night. The waxing crescent moon was already high in the sky, and he could hear a couple monsters wandering around outside.

Slowly sitting up, Lalna cautiously touched his wounded side. It was still giving him pain, but it was nowhere near as bad as before.

Realizing that he wasn't tired, Lalna slowly wandered around his room, stretching his legs. The cool air felt good on his fevered skin.

After walking for a bit and looking through the various chests scattered around the room, he walked towards the door, his bare feet quiet on the wooden floor.

He quietly opened his door, but he was shocked to see Sjin sitting in the living room area. He was writing in a book, and he had his legs propped up on the rest of the couch he was sitting on.

Slowly, Lalna walked out of his room. Sjin looked up and smiled.

“Good to see you're up and around,” he said, moving his feet so Lalna could take a seat next to him.

“Thanks,” said Lalna as he gratefully sat down. “So how's your ankle?”

“Better,” said Sjin, flexing his ankles experimentally. “Almost completely healed. How about you?”

Lalna shrugged. “I've been through worse... I think...”

They were quiet for a few minutes. Lalna stared out the window at the moon while Sjin continued writing in his book.

Suddenly, Lalna broke the silence. “Have you seen any Endermen since that first night?” he asked, still staring out the window.

“Not a single one,” said Sjin, shaking his head.

Lalna slowly nodded, letting out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding in. He didn't want to admit it, but he was scared. They hadn't killed the mutant Enderman abomination. It was still out there somewhere.

Sjin must have seen the scared look on Lalna's face, because he reached into his inventory and pulled out another book.

“Here,” he said, handing the blank book to Lalna. “Keep a journal. It'll help.”

“Thanks,” said Lalna, flipping through the blank pages.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, Lalna staring up at the moon and Sjin writing in his journal. Finally, Sjin closed his book and looked up at the clock on the wall, which said it was just past midnight.

“Well, I'm gonna turn in,” he said, standing up. “'Night.”

“'Night...” muttered Lalna. He heard Sjin's footsteps leading away, followed by the sound of a door closing.

He sat staring at the moon for a little while longer until it finally started to sink lower in the sky. Slowly, he stood up and quietly limped back to his room.

He sat down on his bed, still not feeling tired. Then, after a moment, he opened the book, picked up a quill, and started to write.

He wrote about spawning into the mysterious and glitchy world, and having no memory of how he got here. He had first spawned with a headache. Then he wrote about how he fell off the roof and didn't die, but the headache came back.

Then he wrote about seeing the giant mutant Enderman.

At this point, he stopped, noticing that his hand was trembling.

He gulped and forced himself to continue writing. He described the beast as well as he could. The height, the uneven skin, the purple scar stretching across its face, chest, arms, and legs. And the claws. The long, sharp, blade-like claws that had sliced through his side like a sword through paper.

He shuddered a bit and looked out the window. His room faced the forest where he had first seen the Enderman.

Lalna quickly closed the book and laid down, pulling the blanket over his head. He still wasn't that tired, but he was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he would see something looking at him from deep within the forest.


	3. Symptoms

By the time Lalna woke up the next morning, it was already well past noon. He sat up and wrapped his blanket around his shoulders, freezing cold, even though the air temperature was relatively warm.

With the blanket, he stood up. The pain in his side was mostly gone, but it still hurt to touch, and the wound was still raw, as if the attack had just happened. It hadn't healed a bit.

He walked towards the door, stumbling a bit. His headache was back, and he was thirsty, but not hungry.

He opened his door and walked out, running right into Xephos, who had been walking by.

“Dammit Lalna!” exclaimed Xephos in surprise, jumping back to avoid running into him. “You've got to stop doing that!”

Lalna laughed tiredly. “Sorry for making you shit yourself again,” he said, not bothering to hide his smile.

Xephos laughed a bit, but then he got a good look at Lalna, and his expression changed to worry.

“Uh oh, what is it?” asked Lalna, recognizing the look on Xephos' face.

“I think you should lie back down,” said Xephos carefully.

Lalna rolled his eyes. “C'mon, I'm fine. And besides, I'm tired of lying around all day. I'm bored, I want to help.”

Xephos nodded a bit. “Okay, but just... hold on.” He turned and went into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water. Then he came back and led Lalna back into his room.

“Are you feeling okay?” asked Xephos.

“Yeah, why?” asked Lalna, having to blink several times to bring his friend into focus.

“Look,” said Xephos, gesturing to the windows. “Look at your reflection...”

A hundred sarcastic remarks flew through Lalna's mind as he turned towards the window, but when he saw his reflection, they all disappeared.

He was deathly pale and sweating, and his eyes were glazed over. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked ready to drop dead.

“Whoa...” he muttered, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. “That's not good.”

“Sit down before you pass out,” said Xephos.

Lalna sat down on the edge of his bed, and Xephos pressed his hand against his forehead.

“Shit, you're burning up!” he exclaimed. “Here, drink something,” he said, handing him the water bottle.

Lalna reluctantly took the bottle. He took a drink from it, but as soon as he did, his eyes snapped open and he quickly shoved the glass bottle back into Xephos' hands. Then he doubled over, coughing and choking.

Xephos quickly put the bottle down and reached to help, but a split second later, Lalna was gone, having suddenly moved into the center of the room, where he sat on his hands and knees, coughing up the water.

Xephos was shocked for a second at how quickly he had moved to the center of the room, but he didn't have time to think about it. He quickly knelt down next to Lalna, who was still hacking and coughing.

Suddenly, the coughing stopped. Lalna's eyes opened wide, and he held himself upright with one hand while the other hand clutched his stomach. His breathing sped up and his face became paler; a cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

Xephos knew what that look meant. He quickly whipped out a bucket and shoved it into Lalna's hands. Not a second later, he vomited, coughing and gagging and trembling all over.

It continued for a while, but it wasn't the length of time that worried Xephos. It was the fact that Lalna was vomiting up blood that worried him.

Finally, after several frightening minutes, it stopped. Lalna shakily pushed the bloody bucket away before falling limply against Xephos' shoulder. He was trembling and gasping for breath, and there was blood dripping out of his mouth and nose. His eyes were closed, and for a moment, Xephos thought he had lost consciousness.

“It's okay,” whispered Xephos, wrapping his arm gently around the terrified scientist.

“I thought... I thought I was getting better...” Lalna gasped out, struggling for breath. Xephos felt his forehead. His fever had gone up.

After a few minutes, Lalna's breathing slowed back down to relatively normal, and his trembling lessened. His nose had stopped bleeding too.

“Do you know what caused that?” asked Xephos once Lalna had regained enough strength to sit up on his own. He was also about to mention how he had seen the scientist teleport, but he didn't feel like it was the right time, or that Lalna needed any more complications to deal with.

Lalna shrugged. “I'm not sure. I mean, I was feeling sick before, but...” He stopped and was quiet for a moment before moving to stand. Xephos helped him up, and he walked over and sat down on his bed, wobbling uncertainly on his feet as he walked.

Xephos sighed and looked out the window. The sun was setting and the half moon was rising on the eastern horizon.

“Look, I think you should just take it easy for now,” said Xephos as he pulled a fresh roll of gauze out of a chest. “At least until your side gets better.”

“It's not going to get better,” muttered Lalna as he stared out the window at the rising moon. It would be a full moon in two days, and Lalna was wondering if that would mean another return of the mob army. Or the mutant Enderman...

They lapsed into silence; Xephos cut away the old bandages and Lalna stared at the moon. It was only when Xephos muttered “Oh shit...” that Lalna looked away from the sky.

He followed Xephos' gaze down to his wounded side, and when he saw what was wrong, he gasped.

Not only was the wound still raw, the skin around it had been stained almost completely black, starting at the wound and extending out in streaks. A thin, steady stream of blood leaked out of the center wound, most likely a result of the coughing and vomiting fit.

“What the fuck is that?!” exclaimed Xephos, looking like he was about to be sick himself.

Lalna didn't respond to the question. Instead, he held out his hand for the gauze. “I think I can handle this myself,” he said. “I appreciate the help.”

Xephos gulped and handed him the bandages. Then he quickly stood to leave the room, taking the bloody bucket with him. However, Lalna spoke up right before he left. “Xeph.”

Xephos turned around to face his friend.

“Your arrow wounds are bleeding.”

“Shit,” muttered Xephos, looking down at his shirt and seeing several spots of blood spreading.

“How come those aren't healed yet?” asked Lalna.

“Some of the skeletons had enchanted bows, I guess,” said Xephos weakly, holding his jacket away from his shirt to keep it from being stained with blood.

“You should probably go bandage that up again,” said Lalna.

Xephos nodded. “One of us will be back in to check on you in a bit.”

Lalna nodded, and Xephos quickly left.

As soon as the door closed, Lalna quickly reached over into a chest and pulled out the items he would need. He built a crafting table and made several test tubes, beakers, glass slides, syringes, droppers, and a microscope, along with various other things. He quickly set up a table along the wall by the foot of his bed, making it large enough for him to work. He made a mental note to bandage his wounds later.

He found his gloves and goggles, then he laid out a clean slide and powered up his microscope. Then he took out his journal.

_Test 1: skin sample,_ he wrote. Then he picked up a small scalpel and looked down. He selected an area on his stomach that was near the black area, but still normal looking. He pulled out a piece of cloth and bit on it. Then he used the scalpel to remove a small section of the skin.

He bit down on the cloth, tears of pain clouding his vision. A moment later, he had a thin piece of skin pinched between the tweezers. He put the sample on the slide and put it under the microscope.

Nothing seemed different. Same skin cells, no mutations.

Then he cleaned off the first scalpel and slide and tried again, this time with the infected area.

There was almost no pain as the darkened skin came off. Lalna's eyes widened, and, holding the skin sample in one hand, he ran his other hand along the length of his ribs, where the streaks extended. He found that he could barely feel it.

Then he noticed something else. He could feel each and every one of his ribs, and looking carefully for the first time, he saw that his ribs and hip bones were protruding a lot more than normal. His lab coat and the bandages had been hiding it, but he was much thinner. Then again, he had barely eaten anything but a few bowls of stew for the past few days.

With a sigh, he took the infected skin sample and put it under the microscope.

_Test 1 results,_ he wrote in the journal. _Control skin sample, completely normal. Infected skin sample is strange though. It's twice as dense, which is probably why I didn't feel pain in that area except from the wound itself. The cells are more closely compact. Research further into the cause._

Lalna put down the quill, and he laughed a bit when he imagined what would happen if one of the others came in and saw him like this, doing science barefoot with no shirt and an infected wound on his side.

He stood up and went back to the crafting table. Then, after a bit of searching through the chests again, he found what he needed to make a blood analyzer. He set it up on the table next to his microscope. Then he took a needle and drew a bit of blood from an area on his ribcage near the wound, and he took another sample from the infected area itself. He found that it took a bit more force to get the needle through his skin in the infected area.

He put both samples of blood into the analyzer and started it up. It would take a few minutes to work.

While he waited, he picked up his scalpel again and cut a piece off of each of the skin samples. Then he took both of those and extracted DNA from them.

After he extracted the DNA, he crafted a DNA analyzer. By the time he inserted the DNA, the blood analyzer had finished.

_Test 2: blood sample,_ he wrote. _The results are really strange. The control one shows a mix between normal blood cells and blood that looks somewhat mutated or infected. The concentration of the infected cells are really low, but in the infected area, the only blood there is the infected blood. These infected blood cells are larger and more square, and they tend to stay closer together. They also divide twice as fast as the normal blood cells, and they carry twice as much oxygen. Note: check the concentration again tomorrow. Note any differences._

By the time he had finished writing down the blood sample analysis, the DNA analysis was finished. He started to reach for the paper with the results on it, but then he noticed something on the blood analyzer. He adjusted a few dials and levers on the machine and recalibrated it, took another two samples of blood, and tested them again.

He recalibrated the machine to test for poison.

While the machine was working, he turned back to the results the DNA analysis had given him.

_Test 3: DNA analysis. The control DNA came back normal, or at least as normal as my DNA can get. But the DNA from the infected area is heavily mutated. It doesn't even look human anymore._

He paused.

_I have seen this before though... I think. A while back, when I was home, I was doing an experiment with radiation, and the machine exploded. I cleaned it all up, but to be safe, I did a quick blood test on everyone in the area to check for mutations or radiation poisoning. I specifically remember what Rythian's DNA looked like, because it's not that often you get to look at half human half Enderman blood. But that's what my infected DNA looks like now. Enderman DNA._

He put down the quill and stared down at his side. The open wounds still looked raw, and still hurt. He started to feel afraid, but he managed to quell the emotions and let the scientific part of his mind take over again. Or was it the sociopathic part of him? Either way, that side had no emotions.

After a minute, the blood analyzer had finished. He quickly read out the results before going pale. Then slowly, with a trembling hand, he picked up the quill again.

_Test 4: poison test. Both the normal and infected blood tested positive for poison._

_I don't know what kind of poison it was, or if it's lethal, but I'll find out. I know it's spreading, but I don't know how fast, or if there's anything specific that's causing it._

_Don't jump to any conclusions._

Lalna put down the quill and stood up. He began pacing, worry eating away at him. The giant Enderman was poisonous. Should he warn the others? Then he would have to tell them that he had been poisoned. What was the poison doing to him? He knew it was mutating his blood and DNA, but what else? And how far would it spread? How fast?

He quickly took his goggles off and sat down on his bed, his head in his hands.

He didn't know what to do, and he was afraid.

Finally, after sitting and trembling for some time, he looked up. The clock on the wall told him it was just past midnight.

Slowly, Lalna looked around his room. Then he spotted the bottle of water that Xephos had accidentally left.

An idea popped into his mind.

He put his goggles back on and carefully picked up the bottle, thankful that he was wearing gloves. He was careful with it, because he remembered how the water had burned like lava when he had tried to drink it, and how raw his throat still was from coughing it up.

He carried it over to his table and took some water in a dropper.

_Test 5: water_

He put a sample of the infected blood on a slide and put it under the microscope. Then he carefully added a drop of water.

The blood instantly seemed to attack the water, almost to the point where it boiled. Lalna quickly tested the control blood. The reaction was almost identical, only less violent.

_Both samples repel heavily against the water. The blood almost seems to have an allergic reaction and attack the water._

_Further testing: skin samples._

He took the remainder of the two skin samples and put a drop of water on each of them. They both seemed to sizzle and steam and try to attack the water.

_More violent reactions against the water. Very similar to what I assume would be an Enderman's reaction to water. There's only one more test with the water left for me to try._

Lalna picked up the cloth again and bit it. Then he took off his right glove, seeing as he was left-handed, and he set his hand flat on the table. He then took a single drop of water and dripped it on the back of his hand.

It instantly started to burn like lava, and he had to bite down on the cloth to keep from screaming. After a moment, he pulled the cloth out of his mouth and used it to soak up the drop of water. The pain disappeared, and he quickly put his glove back on.

_Painful reaction to water. Try to avoid it. The water itself actually left a blister, so avoid drinking water._

_I think this also explains why I vomited up blood after drinking. Try and avoid water for now._

He put down his quill and, after a moment, he took one more small syringe of blood, this time from the infected area only. He was already a bit dizzy from taking that much blood, coupled with the fact that his stomach was empty after his little fit earlier.

He quickly built a centrifuge, and he drew up the blueprints for an extractor. He put the vial of blood into the centrifuge before experimenting a bit with the new machine. He tried several different designs before finding one that would actually work. By the time he had built it, the centrifuge had stopped.

He took the vial of blood and carefully transferred it to the extractor. The machine lowered a thin tube into the vial and split the blood apart, putting the different parts into three separate vials depending on the density.

The first two vials contained plasma and red and white blood cells. Lalna wasn't interested in those. He was interested in the third vial, which contained a sticky black substance that looked almost like tar.

He took the vial and held it up. He couldn't see much, seeing as it was dark in the room, lit only by the half moon, which was slowly sinking towards the horizon.

Using a dropper, he took a small sample of the substance and put it under the microscope.

_Test 6._ He paused for a moment before deciding on a name. _Ender Serum._

He watched the Serum under the microscope for a few more minutes before adding a few red blood cells to the mix.

_When I added red blood cells with perfectly normal, unmutated DNA, the Ender Serum seemed to attack the normal cells and mutate them. I think it's safe to assume that the giant Enderman had claws laced with this stuff._

_I tested it on the unaffected skin samples, and it turned them dark as well._

_I think I have the potential to find a cure now. I just need to keep the Serum safe and do some experimenting. Hopefully I'll cure myself before whatever this is becomes dangerous. Or before the giant Enderman comes back..._

Lalna put down the quill and took another drop of Ender Serum. He put it on another glass slide, put a drop of water on it, and put it under the microscope. The Serum reacted violently to the water, as he expected.

Tiredly, he capped the vial and stored it safely away.

He put away his notes and blueprints and he powered down most of the machines, but he stopped before he put his journal away.

_Test 7: vitals,_ he wrote. _I want to see how this Serum or poison is affecting me, so I'll keep track of my vitals._

_It's two days away from the full moon. Blood pressure is higher than normal, and pulse is about 90. Temperature holding steady at about 39 degrees Celsius, or 102 degrees Fahrenheit. It's high, but I've had worse. Keep an eye on temperature especially. This seems to be effected the most._

Finally, he put down the quill and put the journal away. Dawn was only a while away, and he couldn't believe he had pulled an all-nighter experimenting on himself.

He tiredly stood up and found the bandages. However, he knocked over a chair while looking for the bandages, creating a loud racket, and by the time he found them, there was a knock on the door.

“Go away, I'm doing science,” he said, his voice weak yet still loud enough to be heard.

“Lalna? I heard a noise. Are you okay?” The door opened, and Lalna rolled his eyes.

Of anyone who could have come to check on him, it was Honeydew.

“I'm fine,” said Lalna, turning to face the dwarf. “Really, I just knocked over a chair.”

Honeydew narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure you're okay? You look a bit- OH HOLY SHIT! Lalna, what the fuck is wrong with your side?!”

If it had been any of the others, they wouldn't have noticed, but Honeydew had much better vision in the dark. He could clearly see the blackened, infected area spreading across Lalna's stomach and ribcage.

Lalna's eyes went wide when he realized Honeydew could see the severity of his infection. A second later, however, he literally disappeared, and Honeydew heard the door slam shut behind him. He whipped around to see Lalna standing with his hand on the door. He had been the one to slam it shut.

“Just listen,” he said hurriedly. “I know it looks bad, but it's okay. Will you just calm down and not make a big deal out of this?”

Honeydew was speechless as he stared at the scientist, his mouth hanging open slightly.

“What...?” asked Lalna, starting to feel nervous.

“You just teleported!” exclaimed Honeydew. “You just fucking teleported!”

Lalna narrowed his eyes in confusion before realizing that he was standing next to the door, when he had been standing by his table and bed a split second earlier. How did he get over here? He hadn't walked...

Right at that moment, he remembered the other day, when he had walked into his room and ran into his bed. Had he teleported then? Or even earlier that day during his coughing fit. He was sure he hadn't purposely moved to the center of the room. Maybe...

He shook his head. “Look, Honeydew, I'm fine. Could you please just... not mention this? I'm still trying to figure it out.”

“I guess...” said Honeydew skeptically, not really sure what was happening.

Lalna narrowed his eyes, knowing that Honeydew would immediately tell Xephos about it. But he had no choice. He opened the door and stepped aside, and Honeydew quickly left.

With a sigh, he closed the door again. The sun was just breaking the horizon, and he could hear zombies and skeletons burning outside. He found the bandages again and wrapped himself up. Then he took off his goggles and gloves and laid back down on his bed. He closed his eyes, and a minute later, he was asleep, unaware that he was being watched.


	4. The Full Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange things happen when the moon is full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the longest chapters I've ever written in my life.

Something was wrong.

Lalna knew it as soon as he opened his eyes.

He started to move, but a sudden uncomfortable feeling in his stomach stopped him. It then quickly changed from uncomfortable to painful, and almost immediately from painful to unbearable.

He instinctively curled up on his side, gasping and struggling for breath. The pain seemed to originate from his side, right where the wound was.

He groaned in agony, one hand clutching his side, the other digging into his mattress. 

Then something snapped. A chilling scream of pain escaped from him. By the time the first convulsions began a moment later, his vision went dark.

**XXX**

“Lalna did _what_?” exclaimed Xephos.

“He teleported! I saw it with my own eyes!” exclaimed Honeydew. “One second he was right in front of me, and then I didn't even blink and he was gone. Didn't make a noise or leave a trail or anything.”

“I have a hard time believing it,” said Sips with a shrug.

“It does sound kinda fishy,” said Sjin. “I mean, first he sees giant Endermen, then he gets attacked by one, and now he's become nocturnal and can teleport?”

“Don't forget, he vomited up blood yesterday when he tried to drink water,” said Xephos.

“When I walked in on him this morning, he said he was doing science,” said Honeydew. “Maybe one of his experiments went wrong and he gave himself the ability to teleport.”

“Can you even do that?” asked Sips.

“I hope so,” said Sjin. “That would be cool.”

“Okay guys, focus!” exclaimed Xephos, trying to keep everyone on track. “There's obviously something going on, and I think we should try and help. Honeydew, you said he was _doing science_? Well, he was probably experimenting on himself again! If-”

He suddenly stopped with a groan, becoming very pale. He quickly leaned against Honeydew to keep from falling over as a sudden dizziness swept over him.

“Xephos, sit down,” said Honeydew, guiding his friend to a nearby chair. “Don't get all worked up, or you'll pass out again.”

Xephos slowly nodded, staring at the table and focusing on breathing deeply, which caused his arrow wounds to hurt.

They were all quiet for a minute while Xephos caught his breath. The poor spaceman was still healing, and it was hard for him, especially because one of the arrows that had hit him had punctured his lung, and he couldn't do much in terms of physical activity without coughing up blood.

“I think we should try and talk to Lalna,” Xephos finally said. “We need to figure out what's going on with him.”

Not a second later, they heard a sharp scream.

Xephos was on his feet in a split second, and he and Honeydew were the first to make it to the door to Lalna's room. They threw the door open and ran inside, but what they saw shocked them.

Lalna was having a seizure.

“Shit!” exclaimed Xephos. He ran forward and attempted to grab hold of one of the scientist's flailing arms. “Honeydew, grab his other arm! Sips, Sjin!” he shouted as the two dirt traders entered the room and stood frozen in shock at what was happening. “Grab his legs!”

Sips and Sjin quickly ran forward and tried to pin his legs down. However, Sips lost his grip, and Lalna's knee came up and hit him right in the nose, breaking it.

“Aw fuck!” exclaimed Sips, holding his sleeve to his nose to try and staunch the flow of blood. He did still manage to grab Lalna's leg.

The struggle went on for several more minutes. At one point, Xephos lost his grip and Lalna's elbow hit him in the stomach, winding him, opening a few wounds, and triggering an asthma attack all at once. He dropped to his knees and held onto Lalna's arm, struggling to hold down the convulsing scientist and catch his breath at the same time.

Lalna looked like he was in extreme pain. His face was contorted in agony, his eyes were squeezed shut, his hands were clenched into fists, and his jaw was clenched. He was barely breathing, and would occasionally scream in pain.

Finally, the convulsions died down, and Lalna went completely limp, all traces of pain disappearing from his face.

The other four all fell back at the same time, exhausted physically and mentally from those terrifying minutes. Sips immediately left the room to go deal with his broken nose. Xephos, who was still sitting on the floor, let his head rest against the side of the bed while he tried to catch his breath. Honeydew went around to stand next to Xephos and make sure he didn't pass out.

Sjin, however, quickly went around to the other side of the bed where Honeydew had been standing. He looked down at Lalna, who was deathly pale and had a layer of cold sweat across his forehead. Something was wrong.

Sjin quickly took off his glove and held his hand above Lalna's nose and mouth.

“Guys...” he said after a moment. “He's not breathing.”

Their heads snapped up, and a moment later, Xephos had clambered back to his feet, even though he was still unsteady. Honeydew took a step back.

Sjin lowered his ear to Lalna's chest. “No heartbeat either!”

“Uh, help me sit him up,” said Xephos quickly, trying not to panic. He and Sjin moved Lalna into a more upright position, but he still wasn't responding. His lips were starting to turn a pale shade of blue.

Xephos felt himself starting to panic. “Oh shit, what do we do?!”

“Dammit man, I'm a dirt trader, not a doctor!” exclaimed Sjin.

“Move!” exclaimed Honeydew, pushing Sjin out of the way and standing next to Lalna's motionless body. Then he raised his fist and pounded on his chest several times as hard as he could.

“Honeydew!” exclaimed Xephos.

However, before he could even gather the breath to start shouting, Lalna started coughing and gasping for breath.

“Who...” he gasped out, “punched me... in the chest...?”

“Eh, that was me,” said Honeydew. “I would apologize, but I did just save your life.”

Lalna forced his eyes open and looked around tiredly. “Does a-anyone want to explain to me... what just happened?”

“We heard you scream and we came in, and you were having a seizure,” said Sjin.

“Well that's interesting...” muttered Lalna.

“Interesting?!” exclaimed Xephos. “You scared the shit out of us!”

“Sorry about that,” said Lalna. He looked around. “Where's Sips?”

“You broke his nose.”

“Whoops.”

Slowly, Lalna propped himself up on his elbows, grimacing in pain as he did so. He managed to get himself into a sitting position, and he reached over and grabbed his journal, but he was still aware that everyone was staring at him.

“Guys, I'm fine now,” he said, turning to face the others. “Really, it was probably just the fever.”

“What about your infection?” asked Honeydew.

Lalna shot him a glare, but he wasn't really surprised that Honeydew had said something to the others. “I'm working on it.”

“By doing what?” asked Xephos, crossing his arms over his bleeding chest. “Experimenting on yourself?”

“Don't worry, I was just analyzing blood and skin samples,” said Lalna, waving his hand dismissively. “I'm not experimenting on myself, I'm just... running some tests. Nothing you guys need to be concerned about.”

Xephos and Honeydew exchanged glances, while Sjin quietly backed out of the room, planning on checking on Sips.

“Look, just let us knew what's going on with your infection,” said Xephos. “Maybe we can help.”

“It's nothing too serious,” said Lalna as he unwrapped the bandages. “It's just that the giant Enderman may or may not have been poisonous.”

“WHAT?!” shouted Xephos and Honeydew at the same time.

“It's no big deal,” said Lalna again. “I did a blood test and found some poison with Enderman DNA. I've been doing a few experiments to see how my body is reacting to the poison. It's why I vomited up blood yesterday.”

Lalna was about to continue, but at that moment, he finally pulled the bandages loose, revealing the wound.

Xephos gasped and staggered backwards, his hand over his mouth. Honeydew screamed out several colorful words and jumped back, looking like he was about to vomit.

The blackened areas had spread all the way across Lalna's stomach, and it was extending up his ribcage. The wound itself had rivulets of blood trailing out of it, most likely triggered by the convulsions.

Lalna looked down at his side, and his eyes went wide. He painfully pulled himself to his feet, which was difficult with Xephos and Honeydew trying to force him to sit back down.

“Guys, please,” he said. “I need to check something.”

He finally staggered over to his table and sat down in the chair. He pulled out a large needle. Honeydew instantly fainted.

“Wuss,” muttered Lalna. He stuck the needle in his stomach, in a small area that wasn't blackened yet. Xephos started to look a bit green.

After drawing a bit of blood, Lalna put it on a slide and looked at it under the microscope. He looked for a few minutes before pulling out his journal and scribbling something down in it.

_One day until the full moon. Almost a lunar month since the attack. Infection is spreading. Concentrations of mutated blood cells are double yesterday's measurement. Fever is rising, reached a peak of 41.1 Celsius, 106 Fahrenheit, but it's lower now. Back down to 40 Celsius, 104 Fahrenheit. Heart rate and blood pressure are higher. The wound still looks awful. The fever caused a seizure. I still feel like shit._

_Continue measuring mutated blood cell concentrations for further analysis._

Lalna sat back and closed his journal.

“So what exactly are you planning to do?” asked Xephos as he helped Honeydew, who had just regained consciousness, to his feet.

“Well, I'm going to experiment a bit and see if there's anything that can cure the poison,” said Lalna. “I still don't know what the long term effects are.”

“I've got an idea,” said Honeydew. “Why don't we just find a way to contact Rythian? I'm sure he knows about this stuff.”

“No!” exclaimed Lalna, standing and whipping around to face them. “You guys know how much Rythian hates me after what happened in the Old World. He'd probably try and get me killed. And besides, we don't have any way of contacting him. He's probably not even in this world.”

Honeydew looked like he was going to say something, but he thought twice about it.

At that moment, Xephos chipped in. “Is there anything at all that we can do to help?” he asked.

Lalna sighed and ran his hand through his messy hair, leaning against the table. He was starting to get tired, and the light from outside was burning his eyes and giving him a headache. He felt a bit hungry for the first time in days, but he was too tired and cold to even think about food. All he wanted was for everyone to stop worrying.

“I'm fine for now guys,” he said, locating a roll of bandages and wrapping his chest and stomach.

“Are you sure?” asked Honeydew. “You still look like shit.”

Lalna nodded as he lethargically walked back to his bed. “I'm pretty sure, I'll be fine. I think I can handle whatever happens.”

Slowly, Xephos nodded. “Just shout if you need anything.”

Lalna nodded, and he collapsed on his bed, curling up under the warm blankets. He was asleep before Xephos or Honeydew made it out the door.

**XXX**

He was running. Running for his life. He was lost somewhere in the forest, and something was chasing him.

He tried to look back, but all he could see were shadows and flashes of light.

He tried calling for help, but the wind and fear and exhaustion had stolen his voice. He had no weapons. He had no tools. No means of escape.

He was forced to continue running. However, he was exhausted. He wouldn't be able to run much longer.

Finally, he reached a clearing, but as soon as he entered it his feet gave out under him. He collapsed and turned to see the monster bearing down on him. It's teeth were sharp, it's black claws were long and glistening with poison, it was enormous... and it's giant glowing purple eyes were staring at him with haunting intelligence. It raised it's claws, and the blue light from the full moon reflected off of them.

It attacked him.

It tore him to shreds.

**XXX**

“Lalna! Lalna, wake up! C'mon buddy, stay with me. There ya go, you're okay.”

Lalna gasped and blinked his eyes open. He was trembling, and his throat hurt, probably from screaming.

Looking around, he saw that Honeydew was standing over him. He had been shaking him by the shoulders to try and get him to wake up. Sjin was on the other side of the bed, looking down at him with concern.

Lalna quickly sat up, gasping for breath. He rested his head in his hands while he waited for his heart rate to slow back down. As he did so, he noticed that his fever was on the rise again.

“Lalna? Are you okay?” asked Sjin.

Slowly, Lalna sat back and nodded.

“I'm fine,” he said. “It was just a nightmare.”

“I would ask what it's about, but I don't think I really need to,” said Sjin.

“It's fine,” said Lalna, sitting upright. “What do you guys need?”

“We're having a meeting, and we thought you should be there,” said Honeydew. 

Lalna raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything. He carefully stood up and put on his lab coat, buttoning the top few buttons to hide the bandages. Then he, Sjin, and Honeydew left the room.

Xephos and Sips had set up a table with five chairs. As Lalna walked through the door, he noticed that Xephos looked incredibly pale, and Sips had a bandage across his bruised and crooked nose. Lalna felt bad about that.

They took their seats, and Xephos sat upright in his chair.

“Okay guys, we need to figure out what to do,” he said. “Last full moon, there was an entire army of mobs. If that happens again, we won't be able to stay safe. I mean, we may be safe for a while, but you know the Endermen are going to start grieving us, and then the skeletons and spiders and Creepers will get in...”

“We did fight them off last time though,” said Sips. His voice was a bit distorted.

“Yeah, and look how much shit we got ourselves into,” said Lalna, gesturing to himself and Xephos. “Besides, our regeneration abilities are seriously fucked, so we can't risk getting hurt.”

“There's something about this world that's preventing us from healing properly,” said Xephos. “I don't know what it is, but if we're going to be stuck here for longer than we anticipated, then we need to stay safe.”

“So then what are we going to do?” asked Honeydew.

This question started a loud debate about ways of defending the house and staying alive.

While the others argued, Lalna closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, resting his head in his hand. His mind was revving up, calculating all the possible methods of defense. They didn't have enough resources for interdiction torches. Traps like poison spikes and Tesla coils were too risky, as they could easily kill them as well as the mobs. Plus, they didn't have anywhere near enough power for the Tesla coils. They could build a wall, but they didn't have the time or resources. Plus, a few Creepers could easily take it out, and Endermen could just teleport. That was also why digging a moat or trench wouldn't be helpful. The Endermen could teleport, spiders can climb walls, and the skeletons would still be able to break the windows and snipe them. Building a bunker could work, but it was still risky, especially if any of the monsters managed to get inside. And what about afterwards when the sun had risen? There would still be Creepers, and a single well-placed blast could take them all out. Lalna found it easy to come up with all the plans that wouldn't work, but he couldn't think of a single one that would.

Finally, the team reached a decision. At sunrise, Sips and Sjin would go to the mountain where the army of mobs seemed to have originated from. If possible, they would find what was responsible for spawning the army, and they would destroy it. Xephos, Honeydew, and Lalna were going to stay behind and do their best to reinforce the house.

They all agreed on the plan before standing and heading back to their respective rooms. Lalna noticed that Honeydew and Sjin had switched rooms, so Honeydew was back downstairs with him and Xephos, and Sjin was upstairs with Sips.

As Lalna walked towards his room, he ducked into the kitchen and grabbed an apple and a few pieces of pork before retreating to his room. He was suddenly extremely hungry, which he figured was from not eating for several days, and the thought of eating any food other than pork made him feel nauseous.

After he annihilated all the meat, he built a small machine with two small pistons pointing towards each other. He put the apple inside, and the pistons crushed it, dripping the juice into glass bottle. As soon as it was full, he drank the juice, and almost immediately his throat stopped burning, and he felt like he wasn't going to die of dehydration.

Setting the machine aside, he collapsed on his bed, staring out the window at the moon. It was only one day away from being full.

He knew that the full moon would bring monsters.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

Slowly, he drifted to sleep.

**XXX**

Lalna gasped and sat bolt upright. He was trembling in fear after another nightmare. This one had been a bit different. Instead of being chased by a monster, he _was_ the monster, and he had to watch as he tore himself to pieces.

He shakily stood up and started pacing a bit, trying to calm down. He absently noticed that he was still wearing his lab coat from last night. It didn't bother him. He'd fallen asleep in his lab coat more times than not.

After pacing a bit more, he decided a bit of science would calm him down.

He went over to his table and took another blood sample. However, he was shocked by what he saw.

_Day of the full moon,_ he wrote. _The poison has reached it's full potency, and I think my body is trying to fight it. There's a major increase in white blood cells, and the red blood cells seem to be fighting the poison. I think my body is trying to decide if it's going to accept or reject the poison. I don't know what will happen if it accepts the poison, but if it rejects it, I'll probably die._

_Temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate are all higher. I feel lethargic and nauseous, and I have a really bad headache. Waiting for something bad to happen is the worst part, so whatever happens, I would rather have it happen soon._

Lalna put down his journal and leaned back in his chair. His vision was swimming a bit, and his fever was burning.

Suddenly, he sneezed.

_WHAM!_

Lalna gasped when he found himself all the way across the room, leaning against the wall. His back and head were aching from the landing.

He was fully aware of it this time.

He had just teleported.

He sat still for a full five minutes before he was able to wrap his mind around what just happened.

At first he was a bit scared.

Then his scientific curiosity took over.

Moving into a kneeling position, he focused on an area next to his bed. He tried to imagine himself over there. Nothing happened.

“C'mon,” muttered Lalna, staring at the spot on the floor with all the intensity he could muster.

Suddenly, he felt a strange tugging sensation in his core. There was something that felt like a gust of wind, and then-

_WHAM!_

Lalna groaned and rolled over onto his back. He had overshot the spot he was aiming for, gone past his bed, and hit the wall.

“Okay, one more try...” he muttered, climbing up onto his bed. He stared at a spot in the middle of the room. This time, the tugging sensation came a bit sooner.

_Thump._

Lalna landed on his knees in the relative center of his room, close to the spot he had been aiming for.

“That's amazing...” he muttered, smiling. However, when he smiled, he noticed that his nose had started to bleed profusely, most likely a result of the three consecutive teleports, or possibly the fact that he had smashed his face into the wall on that second try.

Lalna pressed a cloth to his bloody nose and stood up, walking back over to his table and picking up his journal.

_The poison seems to have given me the ability to teleport like an Enderman. I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or if it's slowly sucking my life away every time I teleport. Either way, it's pretty fucking cool._

At that moment, the sun broke the horizon, and he could hear the others moving around.

He closed the journal and stood up, walking towards the door. However, that was when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window.

Veins of black were creeping up the side of his neck. He stared for a moment before rushing back to his table. He quickly took off his lab coat and nearly ripped off the bandages. What he saw shocked him.

His entire abdomen had become a dark ashy gray color, and the veins of darkness spread halfway down his arms and mostly up his neck.

_Sudden development,_ he quickly wrote in his journal. _The poison has spread almost throughout my entire body. I really don't know what this means. Find a cure soon._

Lalna noticed that his hand was trembling as he wrote.

He quickly bandages the wound again. Then he found a turquoise turtle neck that mostly hid the veins. His lab coat, gloves, boots, and goggles would hide the rest. Making sure nothing was visible, he quickly left the room.

**XXX**

It was almost noon, and Lalna was almost finished with his tower. The purpose of the tower was to offer a safe spot for anyone caught outside at night or being chased by mobs. It was also a safe house if the mobs managed to get inside the house. Lalna had also stocked several chests full of food, weapons, and other necessities. Finally, it was an archer's tower with a balcony on top. Sips and Sjin were both lethally accurate with bows, and if he could get his hands on a mining laser, he would be unstoppable.

Finally, Lalna placed the last few blocks on the roof. He looked over and saw that Xephos and Honeydew were almost done building the stone bridge that connected the tower to the house.

With a sigh, he sat down and waited for them to finish. He groaned a bit as a flash of white hot pain flared through his skull. The bright sunlight was giving him a headache, so he pulled his slightly tinted goggles down over his eyes.

He leaned back against the roof as the other two finished up. The bridge was less than ten blocks away from the upper opening of the tower. Xephos was laying down the floor, and Honeydew was putting up the roof. They didn't have any railings on the side yet.

Lalna started to drift off, tired from getting so little sleep the past week or so. However, a sharp cry jolted him to his feet.

Honeydew had lost his footing, and he slipped, falling off the roof. Xephos lunged out and grabbed his hand, but he couldn't hold on. He lost his grip and Honeydew fell towards the ground.

In that split second, Lalna knew the fall would be fatal, or at least crippling. He had fallen from the same height on the first day.

He didn't even notice the tugging sensation, but a split second later, he was standing on the ground below the bridge, his legs and knees screaming in pain and his nose dripping blood. Then, another split second later, Honeydew landed on top of him. The impact sent them both sprawling, but Lalna looked over and saw Honeydew shakily sitting up.

“What the fuck just happened?!” he exclaimed.

At that moment, Xephos ran up to them, having gone back through the house to get down to them.

“What happened?!” he gasped. “Honeydew, are you okay? Lalna, what happened?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” said Honeydew, standing up. He looked up at where he had fallen from. “How did that not kill me?”

“Maybe because you had a soft landing,” suggested Lalna, who was propped up on his elbows on the ground, one hand holding a sleeve to his bleeding nose. His goggles had fallen around his neck again.

“But... how did you-” Xephos started to ask, pointing from the roof of the tower to the spot where Lalna sat.

“Honeydew was right,” said Lalna. “The poison lets me teleport. Just found out for sure this morning.”

“Told ya so!” exclaimed Honeydew as he helped the dizzy scientist to his feet. However, when Lalna tried to stand, a sharp pain shot through his lower legs, probably from landing the teleport.

“Shit...” he muttered, nearly collapsing. The only thing that kept him from falling on his face was Honeydew's grip on his arm.

Xephos took Lalna's other arm, and he and Honeydew helped him back to the house.

Once they were inside, Lalna sat down, and Xephos stood in front of him.

“Are you going to tell us what the hell is going on?” he asked.

“I already told you,” said Lalna tiredly. “I mean, I know Honeydew told you that I teleported the other morning. There's not much more to it.”

“But then how-”

“Is it really important?” asked Honeydew. “He just saved my ass. Let's just forget about it for now and go back and finish the bridge before night time, okay?”

“Right...” said Xephos, looking embarrassed.

He and Honeydew left, leaving Lalna to sit and wait.

**XXX**

“Where are they?!” exclaimed Xephos, pacing around. “Honeydew, do you see them yet?”

Honeydew had his face pressed against the window facing the mountain. “Nope. I can't see anything out there.”

“Maybe they just got lost,” suggested Lalna as he nervously adjusted his goggles. He was right to be nervous. Sips and Sjin hadn't returned yet, and the sun was setting.

“How would they possibly get lost?!” exclaimed Xephos, twitching with nervous energy and concern. “There's nothing between us and the mountain but a fucking field!”

“Guys, I don't see any mobs either,” said Honeydew loudly.

“That's good then,” said Lalna. “They probably found what spawned that army in the first place and took care of it.”

“Or maybe they got captured by the mobs, and they're just waiting for us to let our guard down!” exclaimed Xephos.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” exclaimed Lalna. “Why are you so paranoid?”

“Why are you so calm?!”

“Because there's no reason not to be! I don't see a single mob, and Sips and Sjin are probably on their way back already! Just stop freaking yourself and everybody else out!”

“Hey guys, I think I see them!” exclaimed Honeydew.

Xephos and Lalna rushed the window and peered out into the darkness, which was still dark since the full moon hadn't risen yet. Far in the distance, they could see two dark figures moving away from the mountain and towards the house.

“See,” said Lalna. “They're fine.”

“I don't know,” said Xephos. “It looks like one of them is limping.”

“Oh, that's bullshit,” said Lalna, stepping away from the window. “There's no way you can see if one of them is limping from this far away. Just admit that you're paranoid!”

“For fucks sake, I am _NOT_ paranoid!” exclaimed Xephos, whipping around to face Lalna. “Why are _YOU_ acting like such an ass?!”

“You know everything, so why don't you tell me?!”

The scientist and the spaceman were now face to face, and if Lalna hadn't been so angry, he would have noticed that he was eye level with Xephos, even though he had been a few inches shorter than him a week ago.

They shouted at each other for a few more minutes before Lalna got fed up. He turned and stormed off to his room, slamming the door behind him. Then he turned and stacked a bit of cobblestone in front of the doorway so no one could easily come in.

He turned and kicked the wall in anger, and his steel-toe boot left a crack in the wall. He tried to calm down, but it was too hot and his head was throbbing. He quickly took off his goggles and lab coat and tossed them onto the bed. Then after a moment, he took off his boots and gloves too.

He sighed and looked out the window. He could see the light of the full moon starting to rise above the horizon. Maybe they would get lucky this time. Maybe Sips and Sjin _had_ destroyed whatever it was that spawned the army.

Lalna walked over to his table and grabbed his journal. He leaned against the wall and picked up the quill to begin writing, but suddenly, a blinding flash of pain shot through his entire body. His scream was frozen in his throat, and he dropped to his hands and knees.

He had forgotten about the poison.

He began convulsing, and blood spilled out of his mouth and nose. After a moment, however, he gained enough control to scribble something down in his journal. Then he quickly slid the journal across the floor and into the center of the room, away from all the blood.

His breath was coming in gasps, and the pain throughout his body was unbearable.

Then he realized something.

He looked out the window.

Glowing purple eyes looked back.

He screamed.

**XXX**

As soon as Lalna slammed his door, Xephos turned and kicked the nearest thing to him, which happened to be the table. Then he groaned in frustration and collapsed in a chair.

“Well that was unpleasant,” said Honeydew, who was still next to the window, keeping tabs on Sips and Sjin.

“Yeah, sorry,” said Xephos, all the fire gone from his voice.

“You shouldn't be so hard on him,” said Honeydew. “He's had one hell of a week.”

“I know,” said Xephos, standing up. “But-”

Xephos was cut off by a sharp scream from Lalna's room. He and Honeydew quickly ran to his door, but when Xephos threw it open, he ran forward and ran right into the cobblestone Lalna had put down.

“Shit! Honeydew, grab a pick!”

“I don't have one!”

“What do you mean you don't have one?! You always have one!”

“I broke my last one!”

“Shit...” muttered Xephos. He backed out of the doorway, turned, and started to punch the wall next to the door. He handled the first block, and Honeydew handled the block below. Right when they were almost broken, the sound of glass shattering echoed through the house. A second later, they broke through the wall and ran into the room.

The room was dark and empty. There was blood all over the floor, and the window facing the forest was shattered. Broken glass was all over the floor, and there was blood on the shards still left in the window, along with a shred of light blue cloth clinging to one of the shards.

They both slowly walked into the room. Honeydew noticed the journal on the floor, and he picked it up and carefully opened it to the last page, which was stained with blood.

“Xephos, look at this,” he said, handing the journal to his friend.

There was only one sentence written on the page.

_It's killing me..._

Before either of them could say anything, they heard screaming from outside. The screams belonged to Sips and Sjin.

They ran through the hole in the wall and out the door, swords at the ready. There, they found Sips and Sjin sitting wide-eyed by the wall and clinging to one another in the way a child would cling to a blanket when afraid. They both looked pale and shaken, and Sips had a slightly bloodstained bandage around his arm, while Sjin had an arrow sticking out of the side of his boot.

“What the hell happened?!” exclaimed Honeydew.

“T-t-there w-was a g-g-g-giant Enderman!” exclaimed Sjin loudly.

“H-holy shit, w-w-we thought it was g-gonna eat us!” exclaimed Sips.

Xephos and Honeydew both went pale.

“The giant Enderman was back?” asked Xephos quietly. The two dirt traders nodded quickly.

“Holy shit, that must have been what took Lalna...” said Honeydew, looking wide-eyed at his friends.

This seemed to bring Sips and Sjin out of their terrified state.

“Wait a second, it got Lalna?” exclaimed Sjin.

“What happened?” asked Sips. Then it was at that moment that he and Sjin realized they were hugging each other, and they both quickly let go and scooted away.

“We heard him scream, and when we got into his room, the window was broken and there was blood everywhere and he was gone,” said Xephos.

“And you think the giant Enderman took him?” asked Sjin as he reached down and pulled the arrow out of his boot.

“What else could have done that?” exclaimed Xephos.

“Okay, I think we've wasted enough time,” said Honeydew. “Sips, Sjin, where did you see the Enderman?”

“It came around the corner of the house,” said Sips, pointing towards the side of the house that faced the forest.

Sjin nodded. “Then it snarled at us and ran off into the forest.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!” exclaimed Xephos. He then took off into the dark forest with Honeydew, Sips, and Sjin right behind him.

There still wasn't a single mob in sight.

**XXX**

They had been searching for half the night to no avail. Wherever the Enderman was, they hadn't found it yet.

And they still had no clue what had happened to Lalna.

Finally, Xephos started up a conversation.

“What did you guys see at the mountain?” he asked, keeping his voice low even though they still hadn't seen a single mob all night.

“There were about a million spawners,” said Sips.

“We didn't even get through half of them,” said Sjin. “We had to leave the rest with torch traps.”

“One of those bastards spawned a skeleton, which is how I got this,” said Sips, gesturing to the wound on his arm.

“We had to get the hell out of there when the sun started to set,” said Sjin.

“We didn't see any Enderman spawners though,” said Sips.

“So does that mean there's a stronghold near the mountain?” asked Xephos. “I mean, aren't there usually a lot of Endermen guarding a stronghold?”

“Probably,” muttered Sjin.

They continued their search through the forest for another hour or so, but the scientist was nowhere to be found. Finally, when storm clouds started to gather on the horizon and light up the night with streaks of lightning, they decided to split up and try and find Lalna before the storm hit.

“How will we signal each other to know if we find him?” asked Xephos once they had all agreed to split up. 

“I've got an idea,” said Honeydew. He reached into his inventory and pulled out several fireworks. “Launch the green one if you find him, launch the red one if you need help.”

They each took a few fireworks and split up into groups. Sips went with Xephos, and Sjin went with Honeydew.

Sips and Xephos headed back towards the house to go look, and Honeydew and Sjin continued on into the forest. At one point, they even passed the spider's den that Sips and Sjin had spawned in on their first day.

Only half an hour later, it started to rain, and they were forced to take cover. The whole time, Honeydew was worried that they wouldn't find Lalna in time, or that the Enderman had taken him somewhere they'd never find him, like the End.

Finally, the storm had passed, and they continued on their search. They walked around the entire forest until sunrise. By that time, the clouds had moved out, but there was still no sign of Lalna or the Enderman.

And they still hadn't seen a single mob all night.

“Do you think we should head back?” Honeydew finally asked.

Sjin nodded. “I really hope the others found him.”

Honeydew nodded in agreement, and they started to make their way back to the house when they heard a sharp whistling noise, followed by a loud crack.

“Look!” exclaimed Honeydew, pointing up at the sky where a bright green firework had exploded. “They found him!”

Before Sjin could respond, they heard another whistling noise as another firework flew through the air.

This one exploded into a bright red shower of sparks.

**XXX**

Xephos and Sips had been searching near the house in case Lalna had escaped and come back. They had tried to follow the large Enderman footprints through the forest, but the rain had wiped out any chance of that happening.

“I don't like this,” said Xephos, holding a torch in one hand and clutching several unlit torches to his chest with the other hand. He was still a bit worried that it would start to rain again and he'd lose more torches. “Where are all the mobs?”

“Maybe they're on vacation or something,” said Sips.

“Or maybe they're all just scared of the giant Enderman,” suggested Xephos. “Speaking of which, was Lalna with it when you saw it back at the house?”

Sips stopped. “You know what...” he said, “I didn't see him with it. Just the Enderman... but it looked different than the one before.”

Xephos narrowed his glowing eyes. “Different how?”

“It looked smaller,” he said. “I think it was only four blocks tall instead of six. But it still looked all mutated. And it's head was a bit different, but I couldn't get a good look at it. I was too busy screaming.”

Xephos nodded a bit before turning and heading back towards the house with Sips right behind him.

“So now all we have to do is find out where the hell Lalna is! I mean, if he wasn't with the Enderman when you saw it, maybe he escaped and is hiding in the forest or back in the house.”

As they ran back to the house, they went through a clearing. Then they froze in their tracks. At the last line of trees between them and the house stood a figure silhouetted by the rising sun and blood red sky.

The figure turned around to face them.

It was Lalna.

Slowly, the scientist stepped forward into the light, and Xephos and Sips gasped.

He was deathly pale and trembling. There was almost no clothing left on him, other than a few light blue shreds of cloth and the shredded remains of his pants, which thankfully covered everything important. His hair was soaking wet, and his lips were blue from the cold. He was clutching his left arm, and they could see that his shoulder had been dislocated.

And he was completely covered in blood.

“Holy shit...” muttered Sips.

Lalna took two steps forward before collapsing to his knees, looking like he was struggling to stay conscious. 

They ran forward, and Xephos knelt down next to Lalna, pulling him closer so he could lean against his shoulder. He was having trouble breathing, and when Xephos grabbed his wrist and took his pulse, he realized his heartbeat was incredibly weak.

“Sips, launch a firework!” he exclaimed.

“Wha- which one?!” exclaimed Sips, holding up the red and green fireworks.

“Just launch both of them!” exclaimed Xephos, trying to adjust so he could get a good look at Lalna's shoulder.

Sips launched the fireworks before kneeling down next to Xephos. “What do we do?!” he asked frantically.

“Hold onto his arm,” said Xephos, gesturing to Lalna's right arm. “I need to snap his shoulder back into the socket.” He then moved so that he was on Lalna's left side, then he carefully took hold of his left arm.

“Sorry about this,” Xephos muttered to the unresponsive scientist. Then he forcefully jerked Lalna's arm upwards, and a loud SNAP echoed through the clearing as his shoulder popped back into the socket. For a minute, Lalna came back into full consciousness and started cursing at them in a fevered, delirious manner. A minute later, he calmed down a bit. When he did calm down, Sips pulled out a piece of cloth and handed it to Xephos, who used it as a sling and tied Lalna's arm up to keep him from moving it.

“Guys, what's going on?” he asked quietly, blinking and confused.

“Not sure yet,” said Xephos, taking off his jacket and covering his half conscious friend with it. “We'll let you know when we find out. How do you feel?”

“Tired...” said Lalna, struggling to speak through the exhaustion. “I think... I was... up all night... And... there was... a... an Enderman...” He looked like he wanted to continue, but his glassy, unfocused eyes kept sliding shut, and he seemed to be shaking his head a bit to keep himself awake.

“Just... calm down and go to sleep,” said Xephos. “We'll take care of everything.”

Lalna nodded a bit before leaning heavily against Xephos and drifting off, his breathing a bit more steady than before. Xephos put his hand on his forehead and found that his fever was actually much lower than the day before, even though he had spent an entire night alone in the freezing cold rain, as shown by his blue lips and wet hair.

Right at that moment, Honeydew and Sjin came crashing through the forest.

“Oh shit...” they both muttered at the same time.

“Help us out here, guys,” said Sips.

Honeydew and Sjin came over, and, being the only ones without an arm or chest injury, they carefully picked Lalna up, and they carried him back to the house with Xephos and Sips walking close beside them.

None of them had noticed that the wounds on Lalna's side had completely healed, leaving nothing but three long white scars. 

All traces of poison were gone from his skin.


	5. Volcanic

Lalna gasped and sat bolt upright in his bed before falling back again. He looked around and saw that he was in his room alone. It was the middle of the day. He tried to sit up, and he panicked a bit when he couldn't move his left arm, but he looked over and saw that his shoulder was bandaged and his arm was in a sling. It didn't hurt much though. Then he noticed that his shoulders, chest, and back were covered in long, shallow cuts.

He couldn't for the life of him remember what had happened or how he had gotten in this condition. The last thing he remembered was fighting with Xephos about something.

Quickly and a bit spastically, Lalna rolled out of his bed and fell to his hands and knees, just barely catching himself with his right hand. He then slowly stood on shaky legs and looked around.

His room was still the same, even though he could see that there was a hole in the wall by the door that had been repaired. He also noticed that the glass in one of the windows had been replaced.

Stepping a bit closer, he saw that there were several sets of three long claw marks on the wall below the window.

Looking around, Lalna noticed his journal sitting on his desk. He quickly went over to it, but when he flipped through the pages, he saw that the last page was bloodstained.

When he read the words, he went pale and suddenly felt cold. He remembered coughing up blood and not being able to stand. The poison had been killing him. He was certain of it. But all he remembered was the pain. He vaguely remembered dislocating his shoulder when it got smashed into the window. Was that also how he got those cuts? Being pulled through a shattered window? No, those glass cuts were deeper, and surprisingly, he only found a couple glass cuts on the palms of his hands and on his legs. Those had been stitched up and were already mostly healed, much like the other cuts. But had it been the mutant Enderman that had attacked him? He couldn't remember.

That was when he glanced at his reflection in the window. He wasn't wearing a shirt or lab coat, so he could see the cuts on his shoulders and back. He noticed that all of them were going in the same direction, which was strange.

Then he noticed that his wound had healed, and the poison was gone.

He quickly sat down at his desk and opened his journal to a new page. Since his left arm was in a sling, though, he was forced to use his right hand, so it was much slower and messier, and it bugged him.

_Strange turn of events,_ he carefully wrote. _I'm not entirely sure, but I think I was captured by the mutant Enderman. Whatever happened, my major wounds are healed and the poison is apparently gone. I'll do a blood test later to make sure. The fever is gone too, and I feel mostly fine, with the only pain coming from my shoulder and a lingering cold feeling all throughout my body._

_I'm not sure how many days I've been asleep, though, and that worries me. I hope this is the last time something like this happens._

He closed his journal, and the sudden urge to know how long he had been unconscious rose up inside of him, along with a sharp hunger pain. He quickly stood up, shaking a bit from the cold feeling, and he hurriedly left his room.

Not even bothering to see if anybody else was home, he went straight for the kitchen, but he ran into Xephos and Sjin.

“Oh, hey guys,” he said casually.

Sjin actually said hi back in a very casual manner, but Xephos got a bit stirred up.

“That's really the only thing you can think to say?” he exclaimed. “What in the holy shit _happened_?!”

Lalna groaned and rolled his eyes. “I was kinda hoping you would know. Last thing I remember, I was on my floor coughing up blood, and next thing I know I wake up in my bed with a bandaged shoulder and cuts all over my back. Care to explain?”

Before Xephos could get angry, Sjin calmly stepped in front of him and faced Lalna.

“You've been asleep for about 36 hours,” he said. “We found you – or... Xephos and Sips found you – yesterday morning half naked and covered in blood, mainly from the cuts on your back and chest. Any idea how you got those?”

Lalna shook his head. He was a bit frustrated that he couldn't remember what had happened, but he was also relieved that he had only been unconscious for a day and a half instead of the previous five days. And he was still hungry and cold. He found himself eying the chest where they kept the pork.

“Well, how do you feel?” asked Xephos, who appeared to have calmed down.

“I feel fine,” he said with a lopsided shrug. “Why?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Because you were out there all night, and it got freezing cold and rained for an hour,” said Xephos.

What he said triggered a little light bulb in the back of Lalna's mind. Could it have been the rain that gave him the cuts on his back? If he was still having the allergic reactions to water, then probably. And if he was out all night in the cold, could that be the reason he still felt the lingering chill in his bones?

Either way, Lalna could only shrug again. “Maybe the poison's gone,” he said. “Or... as far as I know, it's gone. Maybe I've started healing normally again.”

“We could test that if you wanted,” said Sips, who literally appeared out of nowhere, right behind Lalna. He scared the shit out of everybody in the room.

“Look, I just gave you a heart attack and it didn't kill you!” exclaimed Sips happily. “Does that mean you're cured?”

Lalna only shot a glare at him.

“Where's Honeydew?” asked Xephos, noticing the dwarf's absence.

“Yeah, I thought you two were supposed to be moving the farm closer to home,” said Sjin.

“Well, we started to move the farm, but then we realized that it was gonna be a lot of work, and we're both really lazy, so...” He let the sentence hang.

“Then we'll be right out,” said Sjin, smiling happily. He and Sips then walked outside, and Xephos looked ready to follow, but a question from Lalna stopped him.

“Can I take this off?” asked Lalna, gesturing to the sling.

“Let me see,” said Xephos, stepping up and examining his friend's shoulder. “Hang on, have you gotten taller?”

“Uh, I guess,” said Lalna. “I'm sure I lost a lot of weight from not eating in about a week.” He glanced down and noticed that his ribcage and hip bones stood out much more than normal. He really was wasting away, and he was losing weight faster than he could put it on.

“Your shoulder looks a lot better, but you should keep it bandaged just to be safe,” said Xephos after examining Lalna's wounded shoulder. “You can take the sling off. Oh, and I think you should eat something too. You look like you're about to pass out.” Then he turned and walked out.

Lalna quickly went back to his room, taking off the sling. He glanced down at his emaciated body and realized that he was only wearing pants, and the only other cover he had were the bandages covering half of his chest.

Lalna pulled a light blue short-sleeve shirt out of a chest and pulled it on, along with his lab coat, boots, gloves, and beloved goggles. It was a bit hard to get the left shoulder of his lab coat on due to the slightly bulky bandages, but he did manage it, even if it meant restricted arm movement.

He left his room and, before going outside, he ran to the kitchen and took some pork. Then he ate until the pork ran out, and he was still hungry. It didn't taste like normal meat though. It was dry and tasteless, and it wasn't nearly warm or salty enough. He made a mental note to kill some pigs and get fresher meat later, since the thought of eating anything else – except apples, which they didn't have – nauseated him.

Then he walked outside and joined the others.

**XXX**

Three days had passed before they decided that they needed more supplies. Sips and Sjin would go mining and explore an old abandoned mineshaft that Honeydew had found earlier. Xephos, Honeydew, and Lalna would be going to the Nether to collect the supplies needed for making potions, in case they got into any more sticky situations where their healing and regeneration abilities failed them.

They decided to build their portal in a small cavern near the river. That way, if anything started to leak out of the portal, they could break the thin wall separating the cavern from the river and flood the place, killing any fire-born creature that may try to escape. They all remembered too well what had happened the last time Xephos and Honeydew made a portal and released a murderous demon into the world.

Lalna had actually recovered fairly well from his shadowy experience on the full moon that he couldn't remember. He had done several blood and DNA tests, all of which came back completely normal. The allergic reaction to water had disappeared completely, but he had still retained the ability to teleport like an Enderman, and he still wasn't able to eat anything without feeling nauseous. He hoped none of the others had noticed.

He was also tracking the moon cycles. The day they decided to go into the Nether was a new moon. Half of the lunar month had come and gone, and, as Lalna predicted, they saw no sign of the mutant Enderman. There were, however, regular Endermen mixed in with the normal mobs, and they had managed to kill a good handful and get ahold of some Ender pearls.

All of this went through Lalna's mind as he, Xephos, and Honeydew stood before the portal, which Honeydew had just lit. The place was filled with torches, courtesy of Xephos, and if anything got through, Lalna had set up a redstone contraption that could be activated by a lever at the opening of the cavern. It would destroy the wall and flood the small cavern.

They had supplies. Swords, picks, food and water, armor, a crafting bench, and some ladders. Just in case.

“Ready?” asked Xephos nervously, his hatred and fear of the Nether showing through his mask of bravery.

“Let's do this,” said Honeydew, cracking his knuckles.

The three of them then stepped up and into the portal. The world swirled around them as they were teleported.

The second they stepped out of the portal, they were blasted with intense heat and the strong smell of smoke and sulfur choking the air around them. The bubbling Netherrack beneath their feet was shaking and trembling as if there were an earthquake.

They had spawned at the base of a large cliff. To their right was an enormous lake of lava, which was bubbling and churning more violently than usual. Right in front of them was a large vein of glowstone right at ground level. To their left was a Nether fortress with a Blaze spawner already in sight. There weren't many Pigmen around, but they could see several Ghasts flying around over the churning lava lake.

Suddenly, a violent tremor ran through the ground, nearly knocking them to their knees and releasing more smoke and gas.

“What the hell is going on?” exclaimed Xephos, coughing asthmatically. 

“It looks like the volcanic activity down here is worse than normal,” said Lalna, having to yell to be heard over the distant explosions. He pulled out a small hand-held device he had invented specifically for the Nether. It measured the tectonic and volcanic activity, along with the concentration and makeup of the gas in the air. “This whole place is a volcano. I'll give it thirty minutes until it erupts. The gas concentration is low enough to not be toxic, but be careful and stay close to the portal. We've gotta move fast! Honeydew, you take care of those Blazes and collect as many Blaze rods as possible. I'll get that glowstone and then come help you. Xephos, keep those bloody Ghasts away from-”

Before Lalna could finish, a Ghast that flew too close shot a fireball at them. Honeydew, who was closest to the fireball, panicked and threw the object he was holding in his hands – his flint and steel – at the fireball. It hit it and sent it flying back at the Ghast, killing it.

“That's one way to do it...” muttered Lalna.

They quickly got to their tasks. Honeydew began attacking the Blazes, and because he was a dwarf and had grown up around lava and fire, the fireballs that the Blazes shot at him barely affected him. He had also found a lot of Nether wart and soul sand when he went inside the fortress to get to the top.

Meanwhile, Lalna attacked the massive mounds of glowstone with his pick, and Xephos stood guard with his bow and arrows near the edge of the bubbling lava. He had already killed four Ghasts, but they had all been flying over the lava, and whatever they dropped was incinerated.

While Lalna was mining, he noticed that all of the Pigmen seemed to be avoiding him. A lot of them would walk past Xephos – some would even bump into the nervous spaceman, and one of them even started to show off its gold sword to him – but when they got near Lalna, they would turn and run the other way. He didn't think much of it, though. Just that Pigmen were strange creatures, but it might be interesting to dissect one of their brains to see what was going on in there.

… Maybe that's why they avoided him.

As soon as Lalna collected all of the glowstone, he ran towards the Nether fortress to help Honeydew with the Blazes, seeing as one of them had actually managed to give him some nasty blisters on his arm. However, as he ran, the ground started to violently shake, and the air became thicker with the acrid smoke.

“Let's get out of here,” he shouted to the dwarf and spaceman.

Honeydew turned and shimmied down the ladders he had placed on the side of the building, quickly escaping the suddenly scared Blazes, and Xephos turned and ran away from the lava lake and towards his friends.

And as soon as Xephos turned away, a Ghast appeared right behind him.

“XEPHOS LOOK OUT!” screamed Honeydew and Lalna.

Xephos whipped around right when the Ghast shot a fireball at him. He didn't even have time to curse before it hit him in the chest.

The sound was sickening. The fire charge exploded when it hit him, throwing him back and leaving a crater behind. The crunching and splintering of bones and the tearing of flesh, however, could be heard over the explosions.

Honeydew let out a shrill cry of terror and ran to his friend, while Lalna whipped out his bow and shot down the Ghast. Because it was right above him, he caught the Ghast tear when it fell. Then he ran to Xephos and Honeydew. 

The poor spaceman was lying on the ground painfully gasping for breath. There were tears of pain and fear running down his pale face. Blood was gushing out of the gaping wound in his side, and Lalna thought he could see the white bones of his ribs through all the blood and charred flesh and muscle.

“Calm down, buddy, it'll be okay,” said Honeydew, who was cradling Xephos' head to at least try and keep him calm. And to keep him from looking down. “We'll get ya out of here.”

Xephos coughed roughly and blood sprayed out of his mouth. He looked like he wanted to speak, but it was too painful.

“Okay, we need to move,” said Lalna. He turned to his wounded friend. “I'm sorry Xephos, but this is going to hurt a bit.”

Xephos closed his eyes, and Lalna and Honeydew got him into a sitting position. He was already gritting his teeth to keep from screaming.

Lalna took Xephos' right arm and put it around his shoulders so that he would be able to support his friend without stressing the wound too much. Then he pulled Xephos into a standing position, supporting all of his weight. Still, the standing position proved too much for Xephos, who screamed in agony until his throat was raw. Honeydew, who was standing on Xephos' left, took his other arm and supported him as best as he could.

They slowly started to make their way to the portal when an enormous explosion sounded from overhead, and clouds of dark yellow and black gas poured through the roof, charging down at them.

“Quick, cover your face,” said Lalna. “Don't breathe any of the gas.” He then quickly pulled the neck of his lab coat over his mouth and nose before using his free hand to cover Xephos' face and hopefully prevent him from breathing in the poisonous gas. Honeydew also had his hand clamped over his face.

A few seconds later, the cloud of gas surrounded them. Lalna's lab coat offered nearly no protection, so it immediately started burning his throat, lungs, and eyes. He would have put his goggles on, but he didn’t want to risk taking his hand away and exposing Xephos – who was barely conscious – to the toxic fumes. Glancing over, he saw that Honeydew was squinting, but he looked to be breathing fine.

Suddenly, there was another explosion. The cliff that their portal was located under seemed to crack in half, and lava came cascading down like an enormous waterfall.

It completely covered the portal, and their escape.

“No...” whispered Lalna, his voice hoarse. He slowly sank to his knees, and Xephos and Honeydew went down with him. They laid Xephos on his back, and Lalna still kept his hand over his mouth, even though he was feeling incredibly dizzy from the exposure to the gas. It felt like his chest and lungs were filled with lava.

At that point, Xephos coughed again, and he looked up at Honeydew with glassy, terrified eyes.

“Honeydew...” was all he could choke out.

“I know, buddy...” said Honeydew quietly. “I know...”

Right at that moment, the ground shook so violently that it actually knocked Lalna backwards. He quickly sat up, even though he could barely think straight since his lab coat was no longer protecting him, and the gas was poisoning him from the inside out.

That was when the heat swelled towards them. They looked out over the lava lake and saw an enormous wave made entirely of lava speeding towards them.

This was it.

They were going to die.

Lalna slowly reached over and put his hand on Honeydew's shoulder as a way to comfort him, while keeping his other hand over Xephos' face.

Then he felt a tugging sensation in his chest, so strong that it hurt.

And he felt the desire to live.

Suddenly, the wave of lava disappeared and a wave of immense cold washed over them. They were surrounded by cold, suffocating darkness, and Lalna felt himself falling.

Suddenly, everything became real again and the three of them found themselves sprawled out on the grass in front of their house.

Lalna had just teleported them through the dimensions.

As soon as the fresh air hit him, Lalna rolled over on his side and went into a coughing fit as his body tried to rid his system of the poisonous gas. He coughed up a mess of blood, and it didn't help that his nose started violently bleeding as a result of the interdimensional teleport. A moment later, he realized that not only was his nose bleeding, but there was also blood coming out of his eyes and ears.

After a moment, he managed to stop convulsing, and he dizzily sat up. He saw that Honeydew had already picked up Xephos, so he too stood, even though he felt like he was going to vomit when he did so. His legs were trembling too, and he felt incredibly weak after using so much energy to teleport them.

Honeydew carried Xephos around to the front of the house with Lalna stumbling along behind him. They opened the door and quickly went inside.

Honeydew carried Xephos into his room and laid him down on the bed. The poor spaceman was deathly pale and unconscious, and now Lalna could clearly see third degree burns forming around the wound. The right half of Xephos' shirt was almost completely burnt off from the heat of the explosion, and he was losing blood at an alarming rate – the blood was dripping off the bed and pooling on the floor.

“Honeydew-” Lalna started to say, but he didn't need to finish. Honeydew quickly handed him a blaze rod and a Nether wart, and Lalna ran out of the room.

Outside, he quickly crafted a brewing stand. He placed three water bottles in it and added a Nether wart to the top. While that was brewing, he ran back into Xephos' room.

From what he could tell, Xephos had a fractured spine, so he was paralyzed. The blast had also collapsed one of his lungs and broken all of his ribs on the right side of his chest. It had also triggered some very dangerous internal bleeding.

Before Lalna could say anything, he heard the door open.

“Guys?!” That was Sips.

Lalna quickly ran out and saw Sips dragging an unconscious Sjin through the door. Sips himself looked like he was about to pass out, even though he did jump quite a bit when Lalna appeared covered in blood.

“What the hell happened to you?” asked Lalna, even though his throat was so raw he could barely speak.

“Sjin got poisoned by cave spiders,” he said. “And... I think I got bitten by a zombie.”

Lalna groaned, and behind him, he heard the noise that signaled that the base potion had finished.

“Go into Xephos' room,” he coughed out before turning back to the brewing stand. “Wait, you didn’t find any melons, did you?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

Lalna quickly pulled out the Ghast tear and dropped it into the brewing stand. The regeneration potion wouldn’t be as helpful as an instant health potion, but at least it would help.

While that was brewing, he quickly went back into Xephos' room. Sips and Sjin were both propped up against the far wall; Sjin was still out cold, and Sips was staring at the bite mark on his arm with glassy eyes. Lalna knew from experience that cave spider poison and zombie infections were painful, but they were easily cured. What worried him, though, was that the regeneration potion might not last long enough to fully heal Xephos, seeing as he wounds were so severe and would take too much time to heal.

Lalna turned and ran dizzily back into the other room where the potion had finished brewing. He added redstone to make it last as long as possible, and then there was nothing left to do but wait.

After only a few seconds, however, he found himself lying on his side on the ground. He had blacked out for a moment, seeing as the poison was still fucking with his mind, and he was running on nothing but adrenaline after losing the rest of his energy to the teleport.

He sat bolt upright when he saw that the potion was two seconds away from finishing. 

The second it finished, he snatched the potion and ran on trembling legs back into Xephos' room.

“Honeydew, make sure Xephos drinks all of this,” said Lalna, handing Honeydew the potion. He then went over and handed one potion to Sips, then he force-fed Sjin the other potion.

After making sure Sips and Sjin had taken their potions, he turned back to Xephos and Honeydew. He saw that Honeydew had managed to make Xephos swallow all of the potion, and it looked like he was starting to heal. The wound started to close, the flow of blood slowed down considerably, his breathing became easier, and Lalna even saw his foot twitch, signaling that his spine had repaired itself.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Sips and Sjin were dizzily standing up.

They were all going to be okay.

Lalna breathed a shaky sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. Now that the situation had changed for the better, his adrenaline rush wore off. All of his energy completely disappeared, and the lingering effects of the poisonous gas made his head spin.

He leaned against the wall, but a second later, his legs gave out and he collapsed on the floor, unconscious.


	6. Animal Instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one contains a lot of blood and gore, so those of you with a sensitive disposition, tread lightly.

Lalna woke up the next morning in his bed. There was a cold rag on his forehead, which seemed to help dull the painful throbbing from the headache he was suddenly hit with. He simply laid there for a few minutes, trying to remember what had happened.

Suddenly it all came flooding back to him. The disastrous trip to the Nether, Xephos getting hurt, the interdimensional teleport that completely drained him of energy...

Lalna gasped and sat bolt upright, which triggered a coughing fit and reminded him that he had been poisoned and would have to try and take it easy while his lungs healed.

Trembling, Lalna slowly stood up, clinging onto the wall to keep from falling over. He slowly made his way over to the door and left the room.

Sitting on the couches outside were Sips and Sjin. They were both dejectedly staring at the ground, not talking. That was what worried him the most.

“Guys?” he coughed out, his voice sounding like he had swallowed gravel. “W-what's going on?”

They both looked up at him, their expressions sad.

“The potion didn't work on Xephos,” said Sjin quietly.

Lalna's eyes widened, and he quickly turned and went into Xephos' room.

He entered and saw that Xephos was deathly pale, and he was still unconscious. The bandages around his bare chest were bloodstained, and he looked like he was barely breathing. Honeydew was sitting by his bed, looking exhausted and depressed. He looked up when Lalna came in, though.

“Lalna, it didn't work!” he exclaimed sadly.

Lalna came over and painfully knelt down on the other side of the bed. He pressed the back of his hand against Xephos' forehead and found that he was burning with a fever. Then he took his pulse and found it to be slower and weaker than his breathing. He didn't look to be in much pain, though, and Lalna hoped that meant he was healing.

“What happened?” asked Honeydew, his voice cracking a bit. “Why didn't the potion work?”

Lalna sighed and pulled up a chair. “From what I can tell, the potion didn't last long enough to heal everything. He's in a coma now, just as a way to heal faster and recover from all that blood loss.”

“Is that why you passed out yesterday?” asked Honeydew.

“Yeah, kinda,” said Lalna. “Also I was poisoned, what did you expect?”

Honeydew shrugged.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. During that time, Lalna heard the front door open and close – Sips and Sjin had probably left to go do something.

After a minute, Lalna noticed that the burns Honeydew had received from the Blazes had nearly vanished. He was also feeling a lot less dizzy, and his throat and head didn't hurt as much. Maybe they truly had gotten their regeneration abilities back.

Or maybe it was because they hadn't seen the mutant Enderman in a while.

While they sat in silence, Lalna also thought about his escape from the Nether. He had teleported them through the dimensions, yes, but there was something else in the back of his mind. Maybe it was curiosity at how far he could push his teleportation abilities before they knocked him unconscious. Maybe it was fear that the Enderman quality was so strong. Maybe it was worry because the poison could be relapsing. He still had a feeling it was tied to the phases of the moon.

Finally, something clicked in his mind.

“Holy shit...” he muttered to himself.

“What is it?” asked Honeydew, looking up with a slightly worried expression.

“I was thinking about how we escaped from the Nether,” he said. “That teleport was impossible.”

Honeydew simply stared at him.

“Okay,” said Lalna, “back home, I've gotten stuck in the Nether more times than I care to admit. Whenever that happened, it tried to teleport back to the Overworld, but I couldn't.”

“Then... how did you teleport us out?” asked Honeydew.

“I don't know,” said Lalna with a shrug. “It shouldn't have been possible...”

“So is that why you had a fucking terrifying nosebleed when we got back?” asked Honeydew, twitching a bit when he remembered all the blood.

Lalna nodded. “It's because it's impossible to teleport through dimensions. I've got no fucking clue how I did it.”

Honeydew narrowed his eyes a bit. “Hold on, if it's impossible, then how do Endermen teleport back and forth between the Overworld and the End?”

Lalna was quiet for a moment. “Didn't think of that...” he said. “Maybe because I got poisoned with the Ender Serum stuff, and it gave me the full power to teleport like an Enderman... And I guess that includes the ability to teleport through dimensions.”

Before Lalna could continue, however, Xephos coughed a bit, and his face contorted into an expression of pain. His breathing accelerated, and he started to move in his sleep, shaking his head and weakly thrashing, gasping for breath.

Honeydew and Lalna were on their feet in an instant. Honeydew refreshed the cold rag on Xephos' forehead to try and lower his fever and calm him down a bit, while Lalna checked his vitals. His heart rate had increased along with his breathing and temperature, and for a few minutes, it looked like he was going to come out of the coma. However, he slowly calmed down and, after a few more minutes, he was asleep again.

Honeydew and Lalna both sat down once Xephos had gone still.

“That's the fifth time he's done that since yesterday,” said Honeydew, his voice weak with exhaustion.

Lalna nodded a bit, thinking about what the episode could have signified while also picking up on Honeydew's exhaustion.

“Honeydew, why don't you go get some sleep,” suggested Lalna. “I'll keep an eye on him.”

“I'm fine,” said Honeydew stubbornly.

Fine minutes later, however, Honeydew found himself lying in his bed. It took him half a second to think “what the fuck” and three seconds to fall asleep.

When he woke up, it was approaching sunset. He quickly hopped out of his bed and ran back into Xephos' room, feeling much more awake.

Lalna, who had been reclining in his chair a bit and writing what happened in the Nether in his journal, looked up when Honeydew came in.

“Feel better?” he asked as Honeydew took his seat on the opposite side of the bed.

“Yeah, a lot better,” he said dryly. “Did anything happen?”

“He almost woke up once,” said Lalna. “He opened his eyes and looked around for a moment, but then he went back to sleep. I think he's gonna come out of it soon. I mean, it looks like his wounds are already healing.”

Honeydew nodded. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, we should probably get food tomorrow. All we have left is a piece of beef and a few bowls of mushroom stew. Save those for Xephos.”

Honeydew nodded. “Okay, tomorrow we'll head out and get food, since we can't just wait around all day for Sjin's farm to start growing stuff.”

As if to back up his statement, his stomach growled loudly.

“You can have that last piece of beef,” said Lalna, having heard Honeydew's stomach growling.

Honeydew debated for a minute before standing and dashing into the kitchen, where he devoured the last remaining piece of steak.

However, right before he returned to Xephos and Lalna, the door swung open and Sips and Sjin walked in.

“Where in the hell have you two been?” exclaimed Honeydew, whipping around to face the two dirt-covered and exhausted spacemen.

Lalna heard Honeydew shout, so he went and stood in the doorway to Xephos' room so he could listen and see what had happened.

“We went on a hunt for melons,” said Sjin, panting a bit from the run to get back to the house before nightfall. “Y'know, for potions. Since it was kinda our fault that we got hurt as well and needed potions that could have gone to Xephos.”

“I can see you didn't find any,” said Lalna, leaning against the door frame.

They shook their heads, no.

“I swear, we looked _everywhere_!” exclaimed Sips. “We found about three different dungeons, and none of them had chests with seeds in them. Also, we found another village, and there weren't any seeds there either.”

“None of the villagers even traded for seeds anyways,” said Sjin.

“We even went back to that abandoned mineshaft and looted all the chests, but there still weren't any fucking seeds,” said Sips, rubbing the dirt out of his eyes.

Honeydew narrowed his eyes a bit, looking like he was deciding if he wanted to believe them.

“Fine,” he finally said before turning and going back to Xephos' room, roughly pushing Lalna aside as he did so.

“He'll be fine,” said Lalna, quickly stepping away from Xephos' room, mainly to avoid Honeydew, who nearly closed the door on him. “He's still worried though.”

“So how's Xephos doing?” asked Sjin, his eyes wide.

“I think he's going to be okay,” said Lalna. “He's healing just fine, and he should be back on his feet in no time. We should really be worrying about ourselves, since we're completely out of food now.”

“Um, I've got my farm out front,” said Sjin.

“Your farm is shit, it hasn't grown anything in days,” said Sips.

“Anyways...” said Lalna, “tomorrow we need to go get more food. If you two will get that fucking farm working, Honeydew and I can go look for some animals. Sound good?”

They nodded.

“Who's gonna keep an eye on Xephos?” asked Sips, gesturing to the closed door.

“Well, he should be awake by tomorrow,” said Lalna. “And besides, it's not like you two have to go very far to get food.”

Again, they nodded.

“Okay,” said Lalna. “So I'll see you two in the morning.” Then he turned and went into his room.

Before doing anything else, he quickly went to his desk, took a blood sample, and put it through the blood test. Then he stared out the window at the crescent moon as the machine scanned his blood for the Ender Serum.

Lalna sat for what seemed like minutes staring at the moon, but when he finally looked away, he saw that he had been sitting for over an hour. The blood test had already finished. He quickly read the results and paled when he saw that the test had picked up a diluted trace of the poison.

He quickly scribbled down in his journal that the poison was starting to relapse, and that he still had his suspicions that it was related to the moon, which he still felt compelled to stare at...

Lalna quickly closed his journal and laid face-down on his bed.

He laid there for another two hours, simply trying not to look at the moon, whose light blue glow was taunting him through the windows.

**XXX**

The next morning, Lalna woke up in a bit of a panic. He sat bolt upright in his bed, trembling and gasping for breath.

It had been another nightmare. This time, he had been trying to save his friends from the mutant Enderman, but he had failed. It had been horrific to say the least, watching his friends being brutally murdered and knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

Lalna sat back and took a few deep breaths until he was calm enough to not pass out. He still felt cold though. As if his bones had turned to ice.

He glanced out the window and saw that the sun would be rising shortly. After waiting for another moment, he quietly stood up and walked towards the door, his bare feet not making a sound on the wooden floor.

Slowly, he cracked the door open. It was all quiet.

After waiting for a moment or two, he silently left his room and went into Xephos' room.

Honeydew had fallen asleep in his chair, and his head was resting against the side of the bed. His helmet was on the ground by his foot.

Xephos himself looked to be doing much better. Most of the color had returned to his face, and he looked to be breathing perfectly fine. He didn't look to be in any pain at all, and he was sleeping peacefully. The fresh bandages on his bare chest already had some bloodstains, though, but it didn't look to be anything they needed to worry about.

Lalna quietly walked over and picked Honeydew's helmet up off the floor, setting it on the bedside table. Then he quietly left the room again.

He went back to his room to grab his sword and bow, and when he returned, Sips and Sjin had come downstairs.

“Hey, if you see Honeydew, tell him I went into the forest,” said Lalna.

“Yeah, will do,” said Sips.

“Good luck,” said Sjin.

Lalna turned and left, but just before the door closed behind him, he heard one last sarcastic yet ominous remark from Sips.

“He's probably gonna get killed.”

Lalna hesitated for a minute, but his stomach growled at him, and he had no choice but to continue.

**XXX**

One hour and seven chickens after he had gone out hunting, Honeydew finally caught up to Lalna, who was so surprised by his sudden appearance that he fell out of the tree he was hiding in.

“It's about time you showed up!” exclaimed Lalna, standing and brushing his lab coat off. “What took you so long?”

“Xephos woke up!” Honeydew exclaimed breathlessly.

“Oh, finally!” exclaimed Lalna, relieved beyond belief that their friend was going to be okay. “How's he doing?”

“Much better,” said Honeydew. “He woke up about an hour ago, and I had to catch him up on everything, but he was sitting up and breathing fine and he could move his legs and everything. I mean, I wouldn't let him get up and walk around, but at least he's awake.”

“Thank gods,” muttered Lalna. Suddenly, his stomach growled again, reminding him that they needed food, and he had barely found anything. “Did you make Xephos eat anything?”

“Yeah, a bowl of mushroom stew,” said Honeydew. “He hates them, but it was all we had left in the house. Oh, and I think a Creeper blew up the farm Sjin made.”

“Okay, well in that case we should really get on finding food,” said Lalna, scanning the forested area for any other animals. While a bit of chicken was fine, steak was better, but Lalna was also on the lookout for some pigs, mainly to fuel the strange diet he hadn't been able to break yet.

“I'm not really hungry,” said Honeydew as he and Lalna crept through the forest, looking for animals. “How about you?”

“I'm absolutely starving...” muttered Lalna.

As luck would have it, they found a large herd of cows about fifteen minutes later, and they managed to lure away about half of the herd before killing them with bows and arrows. They left the rest of the cows to repopulate.

As they collected the meat, however, the noise of a pig drifted through the trees.

Lalna instantly froze and his head snapped up. He stared wide-eyed in the direction the noise had come from.

“Honeydew, I heard a pig,” whispered Lalna.

“Yeah, so? We've got plenty of food now,” said Honeydew as he crept up behind a chicken, planning on scaring an egg out of it.

“I'll be right back,” said Lalna. He quickly snuck through the trees and emerged in a small clearing. Several pigs were milling around in the center.

Lalna quickly fired his last two arrows and killed two of the pigs. He then put his bow away and took out his sword, which was close to breaking. Then he lunged into the clearing.

He managed to kill all but one of the pigs before his sword broke, and by that time, his hands and sleeves were dripping with hot sticky blood.

And he was still so hungry.

The only pig left was frozen in fear. Lalna had lost his weapon and collected tons of raw pork, but there was still a strange, savage look in his eyes.

The pig was still staring at him.

And he was so hungry.

Baring his teeth, Lalna lunged forward and grabbed at the pig. The poor beast squealed and tried to escape, but it's struggle was futile against the savage scientist.

Lalna clawed at it and hit it, but nothing would make it hold still. He was practically on it's back, and he still hadn't managed to kill it or stop it. His vision became distorted and red, and more and more energy ran through him. His thoughts faded into a constant chant of _KILL! KILL! KILL!_ and the gnawing hunger became so strong that it was painful.

That was when he managed to grab one of the pig's legs and break it with his bare hands. The beast tumbled, and Lalna jumped off of it's back and lunged for it's throat.

He didn't have any weapons.

So he tore the pig's throat out with his teeth.

Blood spilled out all over his face and down the front of his shirt and lab coat, staining the clean white fabric a macabre red. The pig twitched and spasmed before choking and dying.

Even though the last conscious shred of his mind told him that the pig was dead, the animal instincts were still controlling him, and he still had to deal with his stomach, which was screaming for food.

He didn't have enough patience to harvest the pork from the dead pig.

So he simply started eating.

Never before had raw, uncooked pork tasted so good. It was still warm and juicy, saturated with salty blood. His face was only inches away from the body so that the food would have less distance to travel. His hands worked quickly, tearing away large hunks of bloody meat and bringing them immediately to his hungry mouth. Blood cascaded down his chin and covered his hands. In fact, most of his body was covered in blood, partially from actually killing the pig and partially from eating it where it lay, still oozing and twitching on the ground.

There was so much food. It was so warm and alive. It made the hunger and the cold go away. He closed his eyes for a moment and let the salty, coppery scent of blood consume his senses. It was such a beautiful smell.

He could still smell it's fear.

No. Wait.

He couldn't smell it's fear. It was already dead.

The smell of fear was coming from something living.

Lalna opened his eyes and blinked as his conscious mind slowly returned to him and the savage beast that had taken over retreated. He slowly looked up and saw Honeydew standing at the edge of the clearing, partially hiding behind a tree. His eyes were wide, his face was pale, and his hands were clamped over his mouth.

He smelled like fear.

Lalna was confused for a moment before realizing that he felt sticky and wet and incredibly overheated.

Then he looked down.

With a sharp cry, he fell backwards away from the mangled body and quickly crawled further away. He looked down at himself with fear when he saw that he was covered in blood and bits of pig flesh, and he felt like vomiting when he tasted blood and raw pork in the back of his throat.

“Oh my god...” he gasped weakly, trembling as he looked around the blood-splattered clearing. He looked up at Honeydew, his eyes wide and panicky.

Poor Honeydew had seen the whole thing. He had walked right behind Lalna to the pigs, and while he felt sad that the piggies were dying, he knew that their deaths were at least painless.

But then Lalna had attacked that last pig with the ferocity of a savage beast. He hadn't even looked human.

He had looked like an animal.

After he had killed the pig, Honeydew thought that would have been the end of it, but he had been wrong. He found himself hiding behind a tree while he watched his friend devour a freshly dead pig.

But he didn't even see Lalna. All he saw was an animal.

When Lalna snapped back to his senses, it was clear that he was horrified. By the looks of it, he was too scared to move.

Slowly, Honeydew went around the edge of the clearing and knelt down next to the bloody, shaken scientist.

“I did this...” muttered Lalna, looking at the horror scene. “Oh my gods, I... I didn't...”

He stopped and turned away, facing the forest. He felt like he was going to throw up, but the thought of the raw and freshly killed pig coming back up to visit was unimaginable. He would rather never have to see it again.

“Lalna, what the bloody hell just happened?” asked Honeydew, trying not to sound too scared.

“I... I don't know...” said Lalna quietly. “C-can we just leave? I don't wanna stay here...”

Honeydew nodded and pulled Lalna to his feet, trying to avoid as much blood as he could. Then he quickly led his friend out of the clearing and back towards the house, which was still a good half hour's walk away.

They had only been walking for a few minutes, however, when they heard another very distinct noise.

There was an Enderman nearby.

Lalna instantly froze, paralyzed with fear. His eyes were wide, his face was deathly pale, and he was too scared to move.

“Honeydew...” he whimpered, starting to hyperventilate.

“Just look at the ground and keep walking,” said Honeydew.

Lalna didn't move.

The noise came again, this time from very close behind them. 

Lalna was trembling already, but the sound coming from right behind him sent him to his knees.

He couldn't move.

“Okay, just wait here,” whispered Honeydew, taking out his sword.

Lalna still sat motionless, his hands clenched into fists. Behind him, he heard the terrifying sound of the Enderman's growl. However, it was cut short by the sound of it dying.

After a minute, Lalna slowly got the courage to look over his shoulder.

Honeydew was leaning against a tree wiping purple blood off of his sword. The dead Enderman was lying on the ground at his feet.

Slowly, Lalna stood up and cautiously moved towards the monster. It had a deep wound on it's chest, courtesy of Honeydew, but it also had several long claw marks scattered across it's body. Lalna recognized the claw marks, because he had an identical set of scars on his side.

He had never been so scared of them before. It was because he had been mauled by a mutant one, yes, but according to the scars on this Enderman, he wasn't the only one who had been attacked.

But there was something else.

It was because he felt like _he_ was becoming an Enderman. He could teleport, he was becoming nocturnal, water hurt him... Not to mention how he had savagely attacked that pig.

He was scared of them. He was also scared of becoming one of them.

“Okay,” said Honeydew, “let's get out of here before you attract more mobs with all that blood."

Lalna nodded, but when they turned to go, he noticed that the Enderman's pearl was lying on the ground. He quickly scooped it up and put it in his pocket.

The walk home was quick and quiet. Lalna limped a few feet behind Honeydew, since his ankle was swollen and bruised from the pig falling on it.

On the way home, Lalna tried to get some of the blood off of his face and lab coat, but it was futile.

The others would be in for one hell of a shock when they saw him.


	7. The Cure

The reactions Lalna got when he walked into the house covered in blood were what he expected.

Sjin, who had been in the kitchen crafting some bread, immediately fainted at the sight of all the blood. 

Xephos, who was sitting at the table writing in a book, looked up and stared wide-eyed, looking a bit green.

Sips didn't look like he gave a fuck. His only response was “Oh...”

“What... the fuck... happened...?” asked Xephos slowly.

“... We got food,” said Lalna, smiling sheepishly and holding up a few pieces of raw meat.

“Okay, but why are you covered in blood...?” he asked, clearly trying to keep himself calm, knowing that he was still too sick to allow himself to get worked up.

“We ran out of arrows,” said Lalna before hurriedly handing all the meat to Honeydew and retreating to his room, slamming the door behind him.

“Okay, so what really happened?” asked Sips, moving over and helping the now half conscious Sjin sit up.

Honeydew quickly stored the meat in a chest before sitting down next to Xephos.

“Okay, here's what really happened,” he whispered. “Lalna found some pigs, and he went fucking mental. I mean, we already had plenty of food, but he still went after them. He killed two of them with his bow, then he killed almost all of the others with his sword. That's kinda why his arms and legs were all covered in blood and shit.”

“Then why was the rest of him covered in blood?” asked Sjin.

“Because there was one pig left and he went absolutely fucking insane on it! It was terrifying! He actually tore it's throat out with his teeth, then he started eating it raw!”

“Oh, that's disgusting,” muttered Sips, while Xephos and Sjin simply looked like they wanted to vomit.

“I don't know what's wrong with him,” said Honeydew, shaking his head.

“Well, I have noticed that he's been eating nothing but pork and apples,” said Sjin. “I saw him the other day. He wouldn't go near anything else.”

“So that explains why he brutally murdered a pig,” said Sips with a shrug. “Anything else?”

“You're forgetting something,” said Xephos suddenly, staring at his hands.

“What is it?” asked Honeydew, noticing that his friend was starting to look pale again. 

“Lalna said that... the first time he saw that mutant Enderman... it was somewhere in the forest eating a pig.” He looked up at the others, his glowing blue eyes wide with worry and fear.

They all exchanged glances, wondering what it could mean. Was there a connection between Lalna's strange diet and the Enderman? And where did the fit of bloodlust come from?

There was no way to tell for sure. Not yet.

They talked for a bit longer before it started to get dark. Sips and Sjin went to cook some of the meat that Honeydew and Lalna had collected. While they were doing that, Xephos' chest had become bloodstained, and he had more trouble breathing than normal. Honeydew ordered him back to bed, deeming him not healthy enough to eat solid food yet. He did, however, cut up a bit of chicken and put it in some stew for him.

The whole time, Lalna didn't emerge from his room.

The half moon shined brightly through the windows. 

**XXX**

Lalna had heard every word they said. He had been sitting with his ear pressed against the door, listening carefully.

It was disturbing to hear how Honeydew described the slaughter of the last pig. He honestly couldn't remember even hearing a pig, much less killing an entire herd.

And he still wondered how the mutant Enderman was connected to everything that had happened. He knew it was poisonous, and he had his suspicions about what else the poison was doing to him, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions. 

After a while, the conversation shifted, and he felt like it was safe to move away.

He started pacing his room for a moment. After a few minutes of that, he thought he should check on the poison concentration in his blood.

He wasn't at all surprised to see that it had doubled. 

He scribbled this down in his journal before tossing it aside and sitting down on his bed, staring at his bloodstained hands.

He was too afraid to use water to try and wash it off.

With a sigh, he quickly stood up and took off his gloves, boots, and bloodstained lab coat, which he tossed on the ground. When he did this, however, the Ender pearl he had found earlier rolled out of his pocket and onto the ground. He stared at it for a moment before slowly picking it up and examining it.

After a second, his mind drifted to the Ender Serum.

Ever since the full moon, he had been experimenting with it, trying to find something that would neutralize the poison. So far he hadn't found anything... but he hadn't tried Ender pearls yet.

Lalna picked up his journal and opened it to the last page he had written on. The next line down, he wrote _Ender Serum experiment: Ender pearls._

Setting the journal aside, he found a clean test tube and a pair of pliers. Then, with the pliers, he slowly crushed the Ender pearl. As soon as the shell cracked, the dark liquid inside dripped out and into the test tube.

Setting the shell aside, he took the vial of Ender Serum and placed a drop of it on a glass slide and put it under the microscope. Then he dripped a bit of the Ender pearl liquid on the slide as well.

The liquid Ender pearl caused a strange reaction in the Ender serum. It seemed to stabilize it a bit, and he actually saw a bit of neutralization.

He picked up his journal. _Results: the liquid Ender pearl has a slight neutralizing effect. It must be because of the connection to the Enderman. Something from the End has to be able to neutralize the poison._

Of course, obtaining any materials from the End would be difficult. He could probably get Enderman blood fairly easily. But what if it wasn't just Enderman blood that he needed? What if he needed blood from the mutant Enderman?

Lalna grimaced a bit at the thought of having to encounter the mutant Enderman again. The thought gave him a headache.

He glanced out the window and saw the half moon rising. The soft blue light calmed him down a bit. It was in that moment that he realized that for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel the constant twinge of hunger or the chill that had settled into his bones. He felt warm and full. He didn't want to think about _why_ though. 

With a sigh, he shook his head a bit and got back to work.

He had to cure himself of this Ender curse before he hurt himself, or more importantly, his friends.

Leaning over his crafting table, he built a few metal syringes with several needles to extract blood, and a container to hold them all. Then he changed into clothes that didn't still smell like blood, he picked up his sword, and he walked out of the room.

Because it was still early in the night, all of them but Xephos were still awake. When he walked out of his room, the conversations all stopped, and he felt them staring at him.

He ignored them and walked to the front door, only stopping when Honeydew spoke.

“Lalna, where the hell do you think you're going?”

Lalna glanced over his shoulder, his face stony and his expression cold. 

“Out for a midnight stroll,” he said casually. Then he turned and walked through the door, out into the night.

**XXX**

When Lalna woke up, it was dark. He was confused at first before he realized he was lying face down on his bed back at the house. The only problem was that he couldn't remember how he got there, and he couldn't feel his legs.

He also looked out the window and saw that the moon was a day away from being full. He had lost 24 hours of his memory. The last thing he remembered was walking out the door, with the moon only being half full.

Taking a shuddering breath, he tried to push himself upright, but a sharp pain across his back stopped him. He grimaced and tried to look over his shoulder to see the wound, but he couldn't. Not without moving and causing more pain.

With a small groan of discomfort, he turned his head to face the other way.

He was surprised to see Sjin asleep in a chair next to his bed.

Lalna reached over and poked Sjin in the leg, stirring him into consciousness.

“Sjin,” he whispered, not wanting to wake the others.

Sjin gasped a bit and blinked his eyes open. It took him a moment to realize that Lalna was awake.

“Holy shit, Lalna!” exclaimed Sjin in a hushed whisper. “I thought you weren't going to wake up...”

“What happened?” asked Lalna. “How did I get here and why can't I feel my legs?”

“We found you this morning in the plains,” said Sjin. “You were passed out and bloody, and there were some deep cuts across your lower back... which actually look like they're healing now. That's why you can't feel your legs. Anyways, we brought you back here, and we tried to wake you up, but we couldn't.”

“Hold on,” said Lalna. “You said I've got cuts on my back. How many?”

“Just three,” said Sjin. “But they're all right next to each other.”

Lalna felt his heart stop for a second. “How close are the cuts to each other?”

“Uh, only a few centimeters,” he said.

Lalna let out a sigh of relief. If the cuts were that close together, then the Enderman that cut him was a normal one and not an enormous one like the mutant Enderman.

“Why all the questions?” asked Sjin.

“I was wondering if I had seen the giant Enderman,” muttered Lalna.

“Is that what you were doing?” asked Sjin. “Looking for the thing that attacked you?”

Lalna shook his head. “No, I was just trying to collect Enderman blood. But if I see the mutant Enderman, I want to try and get blood from it too.”

“Why do you need Enderman blood?”

Lalna shook his head a bit. “Science.”

“What kind of science?”

“Biological...” said Lalna hesitantly. Then he realized something. “Wait, you said you found me in the plains, right?”

Sjin nodded. 

“What was I like when you found me?”

Sjin thought for a moment. “Well, it was actually Sips that found you. He's good at finding dead bodies, because he likes to go through their pockets. Anyways, he found you and called us over. You were really pale and cold and shaking, and you were bloodied up and covered in mud.”

“Okay, but what position was I in?” asked Lalna, not phased that he had gotten his ass kicked by the Enderman he must have attacked.

“Position? Well... you were lying face down, with your arms stretched out towards the mountains,” said Sjin, twiddling his thumbs.

“The mountains...?” muttered Lalna tiredly. He laid his head down for a moment to think about why he had been trying to get to the mountain. However, when he relaxed a bit, he suddenly became very comfortable and tired.

Not a minute later, he was asleep.

**XXX**

When he woke up again a few hours later, the sun was rising. Someone had moved him onto his back. Surprisingly, the cuts on his back didn't hurt, and he could easily move his legs, even though they still felt a bit numb.

It was nice to be healing normally again. 

He carefully stood up, and once the dizziness and slight headache went away, he quickly got dressed. He didn't put on his lab coat or gloves because they were still bloodstained, and he hadn't gotten around to washing them yet. He hung his goggles around his neck, his head still hurting too much to put them on properly. 

Tonight was the full moon. He had a lot of work to do.

He gathered his equipment, finding the blood extractor on his bedside table. Two of the syringes were filled with purple Enderman blood.

Taking the two vials, he quickly fired up his machines and got to work. He put the first vial into the centrifuge, and he took the second one to experiment with. He put a drop of his infected blood under the microscope and added the Enderman blood. Almost instantly, some of the Serum was neutralized. It didn't last long though, because the cells relapsed and became mutated again.

Frustrated, he took the separated Enderman blood and tested each part against the Serum, getting the same result each time. However, it was more promising than the test with the Ender pearls.

There had to be something related to the Endermen. Something he was missing. 

And then it hit him.

Turning to the drawing board, he drew up the blueprints for a machine that he couldn't even think of a name for. Then he built the machine and put the one remaining test tube of Enderman blood into it.

The machine whirred and threw off sparks for a moment before completing it's test. 

Lalna looked at the results. The machine had harvested and tested the energy that the blood contained. However, the energy within the Enderman blood didn't just contain Galvanic energy, which existed in all living things.

There was another type of energy present. It was unstable, but it had powerful healing properties.

Lalna found himself looking at teleportation energy itself.

This was the energy that helped the Endermen teleport without hurting themselves like humans do when using an Ender pearl. This was the energy that radiated from the End itself.

And this was apparently the only thing that could stabilize and hopefully cure the poison.

Lalna quickly found another Ender pearl and tested it. Sure enough, the same energy was there, just in smaller amounts.

So his cure would have to come from the End.

“Great...” he muttered to himself. “It's probably Ender dragon blood or something.”

Or... was it?

Now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure his cure would come from the Ender dragon at all. He had never seen it teleport after all... What if the mutant Enderman had more of the Ender energy in it's blood than the Ender dragon? What if the very monster that poisoned him also held the cure?

He knew he would have to face it eventually.

He had to find the mutant Enderman.


	8. The Curse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, kind of a gore/body horror warning on this one.

It took a while for Lalna to finish writing down everything he had found in his journal. He had so many theories, none of which were certain.

The only thing he was truly certain of was that he needed to find and kill the mutant Enderman. 

Tonight was a full moon. It had appeared last full moon, so there was a chance it might appear again.

Or at least... he _thought_ it had appeared last full moon. After all, what else could have pulled him through the window? And now that he thought about it, he remembered that the poison had been killing him. Then the mutant Enderman supposedly appeared, and the poison seemed to stabilize and stop giving him seizures.

He had to know for sure if that really had been the mutant Enderman, or if there was something else out there.

Lalna looked out the window. It was getting later in the afternoon. He only had a few hours until nightfall.

He picked up the extractor and hooked it onto his belt. Then he found a sword, strapped it to his back, and walked out the door.

**XXX**

Lalna let the others know that the mutant Enderman might be returning that night. It was a good thing he reminded them too, because they had all forgotten that it was a full moon.

They decided to stay together and not go anywhere outside alone. When Sjin went out to harvest food from his farm, Sips went with him and watched his back. When Honeydew went outside to chop down a few trees, Lalna went with him to make sure nothing came out of the forest.

The only reason Xephos didn't come outside with them was because he was still recovering from what happened in the Nether, and Honeydew thought it wasn't safe for him to be outside. Even though Honeydew would rather be with Xephos, because he was still scared of Lalna after what he had seen. He would never admit it though.

The closer the sun got to the horizon, the more paranoid everybody grew. They kept their swords on them at all times. Sips even started carrying a bucket of water with him. Every few minutes, at least one of them would cast a nervous glance out the window.

Night began to fall, and the fear grew with every passing minute.

Not only was night falling, but clouds were also rolling in, blanketing the sky and preventing any moonlight from illuminating the dark.

Lalna and Sjin were on the balcony built into the roof. They were both on the lookout for the monster.

At this point, it was the anticipation that was slowly driving Lalna mad, not the fear. He wanted this thing to show itself so he could kill it. Or at least drive it off and prevent it from infecting anyone else.

They had been up on the balcony since the sun set, waiting and watching. They had been up there for an hour now, and they were just about to go back inside. 

And then it showed itself.

Lalna felt his heart stop. He had been looking right at the area in front of the house when it appeared. He quickly grabbed Sjin and turned him to face where it was standing. He had never seen Sjin get so pale before.

The monster simply stood there, it's glowing purple eyes piercing through the darkness.

Then it slowly turned and looked up at them.

Neither of them moved. They simply stared back at the monster.

Then, after several breathless minutes, the mutant Enderman turned and slowly walked into the forest.

The second it was out of sight, Lalna sprinted back into the house. He ran downstairs and only had the patience to say “It's here” before running outside.

Even though it was nearly pitch black, he could see perfectly, as if it were the middle of the day. He spotted the large footprints the monster had left.

He heard the door to the house open behind him, but he didn't stop to see who had followed him. Instead, he pulled out his sword and ran into the forest, following the tracks.

He followed them for what felt like hours. Then he reached a clearing, and the tracks suddenly ended. The Enderman must have teleported.

“Dammit...” he growled, looking around for where the tracks picked up again. He couldn't find them, so he simply stood there, struggling to catch his breath. The exertion of chasing the Enderman had given him a headache too.

A minute later, he heard footsteps behind him. He whipped around, only to see the others.

“Lalna, what the hell is going on?” gasped Xephos, looking angry and pale from chasing him. There was a bit of blood on his shirt from his wounds.

“I... I saw the mutant Enderman...” said Lalna quietly, suddenly feeling like he was in trouble.

“If you saw the damn thing then why the hell did you run after it?” exclaimed Honeydew, looking more exasperated than angry.

“I wanted to kill it...” said Lalna, his voice small. He was having a bit of trouble focusing because of the headache that was currently blinding him. Not only that, but there was something else lurking in the back of his mind.

Then he realized what it was.

“Hold on... I've been here before...” he said quietly.

“It's just a clearing, how can you tell the difference?” asked Sjin, his voice tired.

Then he remembered where he had seen this before.

He had seen it in a nightmare.

“I... I think we should leave...” said Lalna, turning around to face them.

And then the wind picked up. The clouds overhead moved out, revealing the full moon.

Lalna froze, his whole body going rigid. He slowly raised his eyes to stare at the moon.

“Lalna...?” asked Xephos quietly, suddenly apprehensive. “Are... are you okay?”

He started shaking. A drop of black blood trickled out of his nose.

Then he looked back at them. His eyes were wide with fear. And they were glowing purple.

At this point, Sips grabbed Sjin and pulled him back behind a tree.

Suddenly, Lalna cried out in pain and dropped to the ground.

“Lalna!” exclaimed Xephos. He started to move forward, but Honeydew grabbed him and pulled him back, away from the scientist.

They watched in horror as Lalna's hair turned jet black, and his skin changed to dark gray, the same color that the skin around his wound had been.

His fingers started to bleed, and long black claws replaced his fingernails.

And then the screaming started.

However, the sound of his bones breaking and realigning were louder than the screams.

His arms and legs grew longer and much thinner. His shirt began to rip around his shoulders, and his feet tore through his boots, reducing them to shreds.

His screams stopped sounding human.

And then the transformation stopped.

The monster that used to be Lalna stopped screaming and hunched over, breathing hard, blood dripping out of his mouth.

Nobody moved for a moment.

Then, slowly, against his own common sense, Xephos stepped forward.

The slight movement alerted the beast, and his head snapped up, his glowing purple eyes staring right at Xephos.

Slowly, the beast stood to its full height. It was at least twice as tall as Xephos.

He gulped. “Lalna...?” he asked quietly. “Can you hear me?”

The beast stared at him for a moment, tilting it's head to the side like Lalna always did.

And then it snarled, revealing razor sharp teeth.

“Xeph!” exclaimed Honeydew, lunging forward and pulling Xephos back.

The monster raised a clawed hand and lunged at them.

And then Sips jumped out from behind a tree and threw a bucket of water at him.

The water hit him in the shoulder, and there was a loud hissing noise as it burnt his skin. The beast howled in pain and stumbled back, clawing and tearing at where he had been burnt. Then he turned and teleported away, disappearing deeper into the forest.

Nobody moved or spoke for a minute. Then Honeydew finally broke the silence.

“ _What_ the absolute _FUCK_ was _that_?!” he nearly shouted, his voice more high-pitch than usual. 

“So I guess he's an... Ender werewolf or something...?” muttered Sjin, who was actually shaking from the fear of the encounter.

“I think we should go back to the house,” said Xephos, his voice small. “I don't exactly feel safe out here.”

The others agreed, and they all quickly made their way back through the forest.

Xephos was quiet the whole time. Lalna had tried to kill him. He would have succeeded if Honeydew and Sips hadn't intervened.

They reached the house soon afterwards, but before they got there, Sjin stopped.

“Guys, look!” he exclaimed, pointing up at the sky. “I see smoke!”

They looked up, and sure enough, they could see smoke rising above the trees.

“And there's the fire,” said Honeydew, pointing to the orange glow that had appeared just beyond the trees.

Hang on, isn't that where the house is?” asked Sips.

They glanced at each other before taking off towards the house. Sure enough, when they got there the entire wall facing the forest was engulfed in flames.

And standing silhouetted against the flames was the mutant Enderman.

It turned and looked at them, it's eyes hauntingly intelligent. Then it teleported away.

They quickly sprung into action, and within minutes, they had put out the fire.

Luckily, only the outside wall sustained damage, and nothing inside had been destroyed.

Or so they thought.

They quickly repaired the burnt side of the house, because Sjin was afraid that it would weaken the structural integrity and cause a collapse. When they were finished, they quickly went inside and locked the door.

That was when Xephos noticed the claw marks on the door to Lalna's room.

“Were those there before...?” he asked quietly, taking out his sword. Slowly, he moved forward and opened the door, and he was shocked by what he saw.

The inside of Lalna's room had been completely trashed. Every machine on his desk had been destroyed, and the bits were scattered across the room. The blueprints and notes he had were shredded, and all of the chests had been upturned. There was a sticky black liquid on the desk, which looked like it had spilled out of a broken test tube. Xephos stayed away from it. He also noticed that the bed had been flipped over, but under it he could see a book. He pulled it out and flipped through it, seeing that it was Lalna's journal.

“What is this stuff?” muttered Sjin, looking at the black liquid on the desk.

“Don't touch it,” warned Xephos as he flipped through the journal. “That's the Ender Serum. It's poisonous. It's probably what caused what just happened to Lalna.”

“Oh...” said Sjin, stepping back from the desk.

“What the hell even happened here?” asked Sips, kicking through some of the stuff on the floor.

“Do you think Lalna did this?” asked Honeydew.

Xephos shook his head. “No... according to Lalna's journal, he was actually pretty close to curing himself. I think the mutant Enderman knew it, so it lured us away from the house so it could destroy his research...”

“I never knew an Enderman could be so smart...” muttered Sjin.

“Where did this thing even come from?” exclaimed Honeydew. “Did it escape from a lab or something?”

Xephos shook his head. “I didn't know there _were_ any labs that made mutants like this...”

“Yeah, you're probably right,” said Honeydew.

“Unless the lab has time traveling machines,” said Sips.

“Like a TARDIS?” asked Sjin.

“Hold on,” said Honeydew. “You guys really think that in the future some idiots are going to build a lab with a bunch of mutants and a TARDIS or some other way for those mutants to go back in time and attack us?”

“Yeah, you're probably right,” said Sjin. “Nobody's that stupid.”

“Okay, I think we're getting a bit off topic here,” said Xephos, starting to look pale from the stress. His wounds were still bleeding a bit. “Lalna was right. We need to figure out how to kill this thing before it infects anybody else.”

“Then maybe we should wait for Lalna to turn back into a human so he can tell us how to kill it,” suggested Sjin.

“Yeah, I mean last full moon we found him by the house in the morning,” said Sips. “Maybe he'll be there again in a couple hours.”

“You're probably right...” said Xephos. He shook his head a bit. “Look, it's been a long and terrifying night. Why don't you guys get some sleep. I'll keep a lookout for Lalna.”

Honeydew didn't think it was a good idea, but he was a bit too tired to offer to stay awake too.

Xephos stayed up until the sun rose, and several more hours after that.

And Lalna still hadn't come home.


	9. The Enderbeast

It took them five days to find Lalna.

On the first day after the full moon, they went looking in the forest. They found several dead pigs, all of which had their legs broken, their throats torn out, and their internal organs eaten. Honeydew recognized the carnage as Lalna's work.

On the second day, they found a shred of bloody cloth that had been snagged on a tree branch near the house. The branch was high off the ground, so he had still been in his Enderman body when this happened. It was disturbing to think that he had come so close to the house when he could have easily killed them.

On the third day, they found a Creeper that had been cut in half. The body was a few days old, but the claw marks on it were much smaller. Lalna must have killed it when he was transforming back into a human.

After that, they found no more evidence of him in the forest. The fourth day of searching yielded nothing.

They found him on the fifth day. Xephos had been tracking the lunar cycle, so he knew that night it would be a crescent moon, and in three days, the moon would be full again.

It was Sjin who was responsible for finding him. He had recounted the conversation he had with Lalna before the full moon, the day after they found him in the field.

When they found him unconscious, he had been trying to get to the mountain. So that's where they decided to look.

And that's where they found him.

They traveled to the mountain early that morning, and Sips and Sjin led them to where they found all the spawners. They were all heavily armed, because Sjin reminded them that they had only destroyed about half of the spawners, meaning there were about twenty left.

They weren't at all prepared for what they found.

They reached the crater on top of the mountain where the spawners were. None of them expected to see Lalna sitting in the center of the crater, surrounded by the destroyed remains of all the remaining spawners. 

If they hadn't seen what had happened on the full moon, they would have run to him to see if he was okay and see what had happened.

But they knew what he was now. They knew what he could become.

They froze and waited, but he didn't move.

Then, after a minute, Sjin lowered his sword and slowly made his way over to Lalna.

The scientist looked like he had been dragged through hell and back. He was sickly pale and covered in dried blood. His goggles were hanging around his neck; one of the lenses had cracked. His palms and fingers were shredded, and his left shoulder, where he had been hit with the water, had blisters and claw marks that looked self inflicted. The left half of his shirt had been torn away, most likely as an attempt to get the water off of him.

“Lalna...?” Sjin said quietly. “Are you okay?”

Lalna shook his head a bit. “There... there aren't any... Enderman spawners...” he said quietly, looking around.

“Did you destroy the rest of the spawners?” asked Sjin, kneeling down next to him.

Lalna nodded, looking at his shredded hands.

“I remember...” he said quietly, his voice hoarse. “I remember... what happened...”

Sjin noticed that Lalna was shivering. He put his hand on his forehead and felt that he had a fever. It didn't surprise him though, especially with how sick he looked.

“We'll talk about it later,” said Sjin, glancing back at the others and seeing that they hadn't moved. They were too scared.

He turned back to Lalna. “We should get back home. Can you walk?”

Slowly, Lalna nodded. He started to stand up, but then he stopped and collapsed back on his knees.

“What's wrong?” asked Sjin. “Are you hurt?”

Lalna shook his head. “Dizzy...” he coughed out.

“Let me help,” said Sjin, taking him by his uninjured arm and helping him stand.

Almost instantly, Lalna got much paler, and he looked like he was going to throw up.

“Do you want to sit back down?” asked Sjin, worried that Lalna might pass out.

Lalna shook his head. “Just... just help... me walk...”

Sjin nodded, and they slowly began to walk back towards the others. Lalna was desperately clinging to Sjin, too weak to stand on his own or even keep his head up.

Suddenly, he spoke up.

“W-why are you helping me...?” he asked quietly.

“What do you mean?” asked Sjin.

“You all... know what I am... I tried to... to kill Xeph... I'm a monster...” he choked out, struggling to speak and breathe.

“You aren't a monster,” said Sjin confidently. “You didn't know what you were doing...”

Lalna was quiet for a moment. “But I did...”

Sjin glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

Lalna shook his head. “I remember trying to kill him. It's just... right before my first full moon, we had a fight. And when I transformed... I was so angry at him... I guess the monster... remembered that emotion... because when I saw him I just... got so angry... And it hasn't stopped... When I look at him... I still see... still feel... anger...”

He was struggling to talk, and his speech was becoming slurred. Sjin could tell he didn't have much energy left to stay awake.

“What do you see when you look at the rest of us?” asked Sjin quietly, taking in all the information.

“With... Honeydew and Sips... I see fear... hunger... like they're prey.” He grimaced at a sudden sharp icy pain in his ribcage. It only lingered for a moment though.

“... What about me?” asked Sjin, his voice small.

Lalna glanced up at him. “It's strange...” he muttered. “I mean... we always fought. We actually destroyed an entire world together... So I don't see why...”

He stopped again, taking a second to catch his breath. Sjin noticed that his speech was becoming more delirious, as if the fever was finally beginning to affect his actions.

“With you, I can't... really tell...” he said with a grimace. “It's either compassion... warmth... or...”

“Or what?” asked Sjin.

Lalna looked even paler than before. “Or... sacrifice...”

Sjin wasn't sure what to say. However, he didn't get a chance to ask about it, because they finally reached the others, and Lalna fell silent.

Sjin watched how everybody reacted. Lalna kept his head down, his hair hanging over his eyes. Honeydew and Sips seemed to flinch away from him when he passed.

Xephos actually reached out to help, but Lalna flinched away from him. Xephos saw this and pulled his hand back.

They kept walking, the others slowly beginning to trail along behind.

They made it all the way down the mountain and halfway across the plains before Lalna's legs gave out, and he collapsed. Sjin caught him and felt that his fever was much higher than before. Not only that, but he had slipped into an unconscious delirium.

Sjin looked back at the others, and Honeydew and Sips came forward and helped pick Lalna up.

Without a word, they carried his unconscious body back to the house.

Xephos trailed behind, not daring to come any closer.

**XXX**

Lalna woke up later that day, when the sun was low in the sky. He was dizzy and nauseous, and everything hurt.

He felt cold. Not the same kind of cold he had been feeling since the last full moon. This was different, more intense. It was so cold that it hurt. It was so intense that it made it hard to breathe. It had settled into his core, making it hard to move. He could barely move his fingers without feeling like they were encased in ice.

Things had been going downhill for him since the full moon. When he had shifted back into a human, he had been in so much pain. He had found a small cave and curled up inside for three days, waiting for the pain to go away. 

It eventually did, and then the cold set in in it's place. The nausea, fever, dizziness, and fatigue followed shortly after. He felt like he had the flu.

He remembered what he had done, what he was. He remembered transforming and trying to kill Xephos. He remembered somebody throwing a bucket of water at him. He remembered nearly biting his own arm off at the shoulder to stop the burning. Luckily, he didn't have to resort to that. He only had to rip off the bits of clothes that were still wet.

Everything after that came back to him in bits and pieces up until when he turned back into a human.

After those few days in the caves, he had blacked out and woken up again at the mountain, his hands torn to shreds from ripping up the spawners. His hands were bandaged now, but he could tell the wounds were healing.

And then Sjin found him. He didn't remember what he had said to him though.

As he thought back, he absently looked around his room, but he was shocked to see that everything was wrong. His bed was now in the center of his room, and there were piles of smashed machines all shoved into the corners.

All of his work... his research...

Glancing to his right, however, he saw that his journal still in one piece, sitting on the chair someone had put next to his bed.

Suddenly, an icy stab of pain shot through his ribs, taking his breath away. He tried to clutch his chest and see if there was a wound there, but when he tried to move his arms, he couldn't.

Finally looking down, he saw that his arms and legs had been strapped to the bed, preventing him from moving.

He shouldn't have been surprised. They had seen what he was. They knew he was dangerous.

But it still hurt that they didn't trust him. That they thought he was still dangerous even after the full moon had passed.

With a pained sigh, he closed his eyes and attempted to take a deep breath. Then, forcing himself to focus, he teleported himself a few inches above his bed, freeing his arms and legs before falling back onto the mattress. 

Almost instantly, the cold inside of him intensified to the point where it was painful, and he lost feeling in his hands and feet.

It took a minute for the coldness to wind back down, and even then it was still more intense than before.

Whatever was happening to him obviously had something to do with the Ender part of him. Was it that the poison was finally killing him...?

After another few minutes of catching his breath, he felt like he was able to move.

Slowly, he pushed himself upright, clutching his chest. It felt like there was a hard layer of ice that had built up just under his skin, and it was cracking as he moved.

Gasping for breath, he put his feet on the ground and attempted to stand, but it was too much. He collapsed on his hands and knees, so weak that he could barely hold himself up.

He sat on the ground, shivering and coughing and rubbing his arms to try and bring some warmth back into his frozen body.

It took him a few minutes, but he finally gathered the strength he needed to crawl towards the door.

When he reached the door, however, he heard talking.

He stopped. He listened.

**XXX**

“WHAT?!” exclaimed Xephos, glaring at Honeydew. “What do you mean you know how to get ahold of him?!”

“Well, I tried to tell you earlier, but you didn't seem to care at the time,” said Honeydew with a shrug.

“Guys, do you think you could keep your voices down?” asked Sjin quietly, standing off to the side next to Sips. “Don't wake up Lalna, he needs to rest.”

“If he wakes up he'll definitely be pissed that you tied him down like a mental patient, Xeph,” said Sips, trying to sound nonchalant, even though he was still worried.

“I did what I had to do,” snapped Xephos. “You guys saw it yourselves, and he even admitted it!”

“But he's going to think we don't trust him,” said Sjin, sounding stressed.

“Well I don't,” snarled Xephos, his voice cold.

Sjin looked shocked, not believing how much Xephos was overreacting. So Lalna had tried to murder him, big deal. Sjin had nearly been murdered by Lalna more times than he could count, and he still held nothing against him. Xephos shouldn't be holding this against Lalna, especially since it wasn't his fault.

After a moment of dead, uncomfortable silence, Xephos turned back to Honeydew.

“Look, just do whatever it takes to contact him. We need to fix this before Lalna tries to kill anyone else.”

“I really don't think you should be blaming him,” said Sjin. “None of this is his fault, really! And did you see how bad he looked? I think he's in more danger than we are...”

Xephos shot a cold glare at him before looking back at Honeydew.

“Right...” said Honeydew, taking a step away from Xephos. “Just... just give me a minute.”

It took a few minutes, but Honeydew set up a cauldron on a flat stone platform. Underneath it, he lit a fire and got the water boiling.

“Anybody have an Eye of Ender?” he asked.

“Here,” said Sips, reaching into a nearby chest and handing the object to Honeydew.

“This is just an Ender pearl you scrub.”

“You seem to be forgetting that I'm inept.”

“Here,” said Sjin, quickly finding a bit of blaze powder. He took the Ender pearl and combined it, then handed it to Honeydew.

“Alright boys, hold on to your trousers and hope this works...” said Honeydew, holding the Ender Eye in the palm of his hand and walking up to the cauldron.

Taking a deep breath, Honeydew muttered a few alien words under his breath. A few purple particles began to swirl around the Ender Eye. Then he tossed it into the cauldron.

It hit the boiling water with a _crack_ and split open, releasing a large amount of purple gas. The gas swirled above the cauldron for a moment. Then, much to everyone's surprise, an image appeared within the fog.

Then the image sharpened and revealed Rythian.

“Oh thank fuck it worked!” exclaimed Honeydew happily.

“Honeydew? What the hell is going on?” asked Rythian. “Where are you guys?”

“Where are we? Well... uh... we're not sure... exactly...” said Honeydew with a shrug.

“Look, Rythian, something happened,” said Xephos, stepping up next to Honeydew. “There was... an incident...”

Rythian glanced at Xephos before looking behind him, spotting Sips and Sjin in the background.

“Let me guess,” said Rythian. “The incident involves Lalna, since it's you five that have gone missing and he's the only one not there?”

Xephos was quiet for a moment. “You... you guys are looking for us?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “Lomadia has pretty much kept everybody searching nonstop.”

A small smile crept onto Xephos' face.

“Anyways, what's the incident?” asked Rythian.

“Well... a while ago, on the first night we were stranded here... Lalna was attacked by this... large, mutated Enderman,” said Xephos, trying to find the words to properly tell the story. “And after he got attacked, he started acting... strange... but... Last full moon, we were out in the forest, and he collapsed... And then...”

At that moment, Honeydew got tired of the long pauses, so he pushed Xephos out of the way and spoke up to Rythian.

“He turned into a fucking Enderman,” exclaimed Honeydew. “We just found him this morning.”

At first Rythian looked confused. And then his eyes widened and the color drained from his face.

“The Enderman that attacked him,” he said. “How big was it?”

“It was fucking enormous,” said Honeydew. “Twice the size of the normal ones.”

“Oh fuck...” muttered Rythian, looking nervous. “And it poisoned Lalna...?”

They all nodded.

“This isn't good,” said Rythian. “How long has he been poisoned? How many transformations has he gone through?”

“Uh... just two...” said Xephos, confused.

Rythian shook his head. “Look, the poison is turning him into a monster. If he's already been through two transformations, then he might have a few hours of humanity left before he loses his mind and becomes nothing more than a bloodthirsty monster. You need to be careful, because after his mind is lost, he will try to kill you...”

“How do you know so much about this?” asked Sjin, stepping forward.

Rythian's expression turned dark. “Because I've seen this monster before.”

“What?!” they all exclaimed.

He nodded. “A few years ago, a friend and I went exploring, and we got lost. The mutant Enderman found us. It attacked my friend, and it disappeared. After that, he started getting worse, and on the full moon, he transformed into the same thing as Lalna, probably.”

“And what would that be, exactly?” asked Xephos.

“An Enderbeast.”

“Enderbeast...?” muttered Xephos.

Rythian nodded. “I can't stress how important it is that you guys get a cure for him.”

“He's been experimenting on himself for weeks,” said Honeydew. “Don't you think he would have found a cure by now...?”

Rythian shook his head. “You need to go to the End. The cure is the crystals that heal the Ender Dragon. It's the only thing that can stabilize the poison and save Lalna. It took me a long time to realize what the cure was, but by then it was too late.”

“Too late?” asked Sjin. “What happens if we don't get the crystal in time...?”

Rythian took a deep breath. “Without that crystal, he won't survive another transformation. The poison will kill him by the next full moon, after he transforms. You need to get the crystal before he transforms, or you won't be able to save him.”

Sjin took a step back. The next full moon was only three days away.

Lalna only had three days left.

“How exactly are we supposed to get one of those crystals?” asked Xephos. “Last time I checked, they explode when you touch them.”

“Here,” said Rythian, waving his hand. Suddenly, a pattern appeared, burnt into the floorboards in front of the cauldron.

“What the hell is that?” asked Honeydew, looking at the pattern.

“It's a containment rune,” said Rythian. “Use silver to make a pendant to hold the crystal, and carve the runes around the outside. When you get to a crystal, just hold out the pendant and it'll be drawn inside. The only problem is it takes a bit of time to work, so someone will need to keep the Ender Dragon distracted. She won't be happy about you stealing from her.”

Suddenly, the image became fuzzy and the cloud of purple gas began to dissipate. They were losing the connection.

“Get to the End!” exclaimed Rythian as the image disappeared. “It's his only chance!”

And then the cloud disappeared and Rythian was gone.

“We've gotta tell Lalna,” said Sjin after a long minute of silence.

The others nodded, so Sjin turned and went to the door to Lalna's room. He slowly opened it, expecting Lalna to still be unconscious, but he was shocked to see that the bed was empty.

He realized what had happened a second later when he saw two of the glass panes from the window leaning against the wall.

He quickly ran back into the other room. “Lalna's gone!”

“What?!” exclaimed Xephos. He quickly ran into Lalna's room and looked around, but Sjin was right.

The window was open, Lalna's lab coat and goggles were gone, and his journal was sitting in the center of his bed.

Slowly, Xephos walked over and picked up the journal. He turned to the last page that had been written on.

There was a message that had been hastily scribbled down.

_I heard what he said. I'm a monster. You don't trust me. For your own safety, don't try and find me._

Xephos stared at the message before slowly turning to look behind him, seeing the other three standing in the doorway, staring at him.

He shook his head sadly.

“Guys... he's gone...”

**XXX**

Lalna stumbled through the forest, gasping and groaning in pain. The cold under his skin had intensified so much that his fingers were turning blue, and it was painful to move.

He staggered forward and grabbed onto a tree to keep from falling over, knowing that if he fell he would probably never get back up.

The whole time, the last words he had heard Rythian say still echoed in his mind.

“He will try to kill you...”

If he really was as powerful as he remembered, then it was too dangerous. He couldn't stay. Even his presence was too much of a danger, since he seemed to be a magnet for all Ender activity.

He hoped that, now that he was gone, they would be able to find a way out of this hellish world. That they would be able to save themselves.

He wasn't sure where he was going. The only thing running through his mind was to keep his friends safe.

He continued to stumble along when suddenly, he sensed that he was being watched.

Everything happened in slow motion after that. He turned to face where he thought the thing watching him was hiding. Suddenly, an arrow shot out of the darkness and grazed his side, tearing open a gash in his lab coat and shirt. When it hit his skin, he heard a sharp cracking noise, and when he looked down, he saw that the wound wasn't bleeding. Below his skin was a layer of greenish blue material that looked hard. There was a crack in it from the arrow, and a bit of thick black liquid was dripping out.

Lalna slowly looked up again just in time to see the skeleton fire another arrow directly at his chest.

Without hesitation, he teleported off to the side, away from the arrow.

As soon as he landed the teleport, he doubled over in pain. It was so cold it felt like it was burning him from the inside out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the skeleton coming towards him. It fired at him again, and he was forced to teleport.

And because he wasn't looking at anywhere specific to land it, he accidentally teleported himself a few hundred feet away, where he fell and landed right in the middle of a small lake.

He found himself completely underwater, panicking as the water around him instantly turned red with blood. He tried to teleport out, but he couldn't. Not when he was fully submerged.

He could barely move, paralyzed from the pain and cold. The lake was shallow, however, and he realized that he was only a foot away from the surface.

Using every last scrap of strength he had, he raised his arm, and his hand broke the surface.

The second he felt air, he teleported and landed right next to the lake, coughing and gasping and shaking. He was still covered in blood; it was strange though. The water didn't seem to burn him so much as draw the blood out of his body. The only thing that appeared burnt was his arm, which was still bleeding.

He felt so weak that he was barely able to stand. His clothes and hair were still soaking wet and burning him, but he didn't care.

He forced himself to stand, crying out in agony as he did so. Then he forced one bare foot in front of the other and continued walking.

After a minute, he realized that the burning was gone, replaced by a much more intense cold. Then he realized that the water on his clothes, hair, ad skin had frozen.

He started to get dizzy, and he could barely breathe. The world was spinning around him, and he found himself on the ground, no energy left in his body.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't keep his eyes open.

He knew he was going to fall asleep here and never wake up. The monsters would get him if he didn't freeze to death.

He closed his eyes.

Then a few seconds later, he heard footsteps. He felt something poke his back. When he didn't respond, it poked his ribs, which drew out a hiss of pain.

Whatever it was realized he was alive. He felt himself being moved onto his back. And then he felt the thing pick him up.

The creature was so warm. It held him close, and he took a shuddering breath as the heat drove away the intense cold and let him breathe again. 

The creature that had found him saw that he was breathing okay again, and it also saw that the ice on him was beginning to melt. It carefully placed a large hand on his chest, and the water evaporated within seconds, leaving him warm and dry.

Lalna didn't realize what was happening. The only thing he knew was that he wasn't in extreme pain anymore. For now, the cold had retreated. And with his combined lack of pain and lack of energy, he almost instantly fell asleep.

The creature looked at him for a moment, tilting it's head to the side, curious. Then it started walking, carrying Lalna deeper into the forest.


	10. The Desert

Nobody knew what to do. Lalna was gone, and they didn't know how to find him or where to look.

Xephos stood on the balcony on the roof. He couldn't face the others, knowing that it was his fault Lalna had left.

He was staring at Lalna's journal, reading his last words over and over again. It was only then that he realized his hands were shaking.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Lalna was his friend and he needed help. And Xephos hadn't trusted him. He even said so, and Lalna clearly heard him.

He didn't know what to do. He needed to fix this, but he didn't know how.

Frustrated, he let the journal fall from his hands, and he was about to go back into the house when he noticed something.

When the journal landed, it opened to a page near the end. There was a sketch on the page for a machine that Xephos didn't recognize.

Stooping over, he picked up the book and looked at the blueprint. Lalna had scribbled something underneath it. He said it was a way to find the mutant Enderman.

It was a sensor designed to find large amounts of Ender activity. It was a way to find Endermen.

His eyes widened and he quickly ran downstairs.

“Guys!” he exclaimed. “I know how to find him!”

**XXX**

When Lalna woke up, he was confused, mainly because he felt himself being carried by something.

Slowly, he blinked his eyes open, but what he saw shocked him.

He was being carried by an Enderman.

The Enderman must have heard him gasp, because it looked down at him. That was when he realized that not only was the Enderman covered in scars, it was missing it's right eye.

Holding him with just one arm, the Enderman raised it's other arm. Lalna flinched, expecting it to strike him, but it didn't. It gently stroked his hair back, clearly attempting to calm him down.

Slowly, after a minute, he began to relax. The one eyed Enderman seemed to sense this, because it stopped stroking his hair and went back to carrying him with both arms. It held him close to it's chest so that he would stay warm.

It must have felt his pulse and realized he was still scared, because it started to emit a smooth, calming hum that sounded a bit like a heartbeat. It had a soothing melody that instantly made him relax and feel sleepy.

He had heard it before, when he was studying Endermen. The mothers would use this melody to put their babies to sleep. It was an Enderman's lullaby.

Completely relaxed and starting to fall asleep again, he looked around. It was the middle of the night, and the crescent moon was shining bright in the black sky. They were in a large desert. On the horizon, Lalna could see the faint silhouettes of small buildings.

He didn't have the energy to think about it though. His exhaustion and the Endermother's singing were enough to send him back to sleep.

However, just before he fell asleep, he heard her say something. She spoke in the Ender language, but he still understood.

“Almost home...” she said. Then she continued her lullaby.

**XXX**

When Lalna woke up again, it was light out. He glanced around and saw that he was in a small dimly lit sandstone hut. His tattered and bloodstained lab coat was laying on the ground beside him.

Looking down, he saw that he was mostly buried in a thin layer of warm sand.

He was a bit confused, but when he looked to his left, he was met with a face he recognized, and he remembered what was happening.

The Endermother was sitting next to him, watching him curiously with her single eye.

Lalna tried to sit up, but a sharp cold pain in his chest stopped him. The Endermother reached out and gently pushed him back down.

“Sick,” she said. “Lay down.”

“W-why... why can I understand you...?” asked Lalna quietly. He only then realized that his voice carried a strong Enderman undertone.

She pointed to his side, where his scars were, clearly visible through his torn shirt.

“Is that why you helped me...?” he asked.

She nodded. “One of us.”

“But what am I exactly...?”

“Enderbeast.”

“Enderbeast...?” he muttered. Suddenly, another sharp cold pain shot through his chest, making it hard to breathe.

The Endermother leaned forward and placed one hand on Lalna's forehead, and the other one on his chest. The, a moment later, the pain started to go away. She was healing him.

After a few more seconds, she pulled her hands back. “Better?”

He slowly nodded. “How did you do that...?”

“We heal each other,” she said.

He sighed a bit and laid back, letting the warmth of the sand drive back the cold.

“I'm dying, aren't I...?” he asked quietly.

She nodded.

He shook his head a bit and looked up at her. “What's wrong with me...?”

“Burning out...” she said sadly. “Too weak. Enderbeast will kill you.”

“When?” he asked quietly.

“Full moon,” she said.

“Of course...” muttered Lalna. However, before he could say anything else, he was hit with a wave of pain, and his vision went black.

When he came back to his senses a few minutes later, he was breathing hard and shaking, and he tasted blood. The Endermother had picked him up, holding him with one arm and restraining his hands with the other.

When she saw that he had come back to his senses, she let go of his arms.

He looked down and saw that his hands had turned black and there were sharp claws at the end of each finger. He watched for a minute as the color slowly started to return to normal and his claws disappeared and his hands and fingers returned to their normal size. Only a bit of the dark color remained in his fingers.

“W-what just happened...?” gasped Lalna, struggling to breathe.

“Losing control,” said the Endermother.

Lalna looked up at her and saw a set of long claw marks on her arm that were slowly healing. Had he done that?

Either way, it terrified him, and he realized that it was a good thing he left. He could have just as easily attacked one of his friends.

“What... what exactly is... happening...?” he coughed out, wrapping his arms around himself at the sudden increase of intense cold. “Why is it so cold...?”

“The Void,” she said, pointing at his scars. “Inside you. No air, no warmth. Humans can't survive. We can.”

“Is that... is that why it's cold...? After I teleport?” asked Lalna, looking up at her. “I'm... exposing myself to the Void?”

She nodded. “Jumps wake the Void. Void kills humans. Void kills everything.”

“Then why can you teleport... jump... without a problem?”

She picked up his limp hand and held it tight. He felt how extremely high her body temperature was.

“Warm enough,” she said. “And pearls. Void makes pearls. Pearls absorb cold. Pearls absorb jump energy.” She tapped her chest, where Lalna knew from experience was where the Endermen created and stored the majority of their Ender pearls.

Lalna narrowed his eyes a bit. “How does the Void make pearls?”

“Freezes blood,” she said. “Traps energy.”

“Is that why I'm dying?” he asked. “The Enderbeast is exposing me to the Void too much?”

The Endermother nodded. “Turning you,” she said. “Poison. Makes you like us.”

“So... the poison is trying to turn me into an Enderman?” asked Lalna tiredly.

She nodded.

“And humans can't survive the transformation?”

She shook her head.

Lalna sighed a bit. He knew that Endermen had an extremely high body temperature – much higher than any human could survive. That was one way it could kill him. Also the physical trauma of another transformation could send him over the edge. Another thing was the exposure to the Void. The last thing he wanted was to be poisoned by Void flux, so he would have to try and control himself to prevent the fits and small transformations from happening.

But there was something else too. The Endermother said that the exposure to the Void was what created Ender pearls. He thought back to when he had been attacked by the skeleton. It shot him an inch above his scars, but instead of blood, there was a bit of black liquid and a thin shell, which, now that he thought about it, must have been the color of an Ender pearl.

The poison raging through his veins was internally exposing him to the Void, which was freezing his blood.

Then he realized what was going to happen. He realized how the poison was going to kill him.

He knew that humans had no place to store Ender pearls if they had them, so his body couldn't physically create them and use them to trap the Void energy. He realized a second later that the Void was still freezing his blood, but instead of creating Ender pearls, the blood was encasing and crystallizing his internal organs. That was probably why he hadn't felt hungry since the last full moon. And that was why he was having trouble breathing.

He realized that part of his right lung was beginning to freeze and shut down. He could feel it when he inhaled – a tight sensation in his lower ribcage.

By the time the full moon came, he would be half frozen and mostly dead. Then he would transform, releasing a lethal amount of the Void into his body and freezing the rest of the blood around his heart and lungs. It would crystallize his heart and stop it from beating. It would paralyze his lungs and stop him from breathing.

He needed a cure, and fast. If he didn't get one before he transformed again in two days, he was going to die.

The Endermother seemed to realize how stressed and exhausted Lalna was. She held him close to her chest and started to gently rock him back and forth.

“Sleep,” she said quietly. “You need it.”

“I can't...” he mumbled. “I... I have to... find a cure...”

The Endermother tilted her head to the side curiously. She could clearly see that this human Enderbeast was exhausted, and he needed rest. Why couldn't he see that himself?

Carefully, so she didn't hurt the fragile monster in her arms, she pulled him closer and started to hum her lullaby.

Lalna knew she was just trying to help, but he knew he needed to find a cure. He tried to push himself away or sit up, but his body didn't respond. After that, he had no choice but to relax and listen.

After a minute, he finally understood what she was saying. There was no way he would ever be able to translate it. There probably weren't even existing words to translate it to.

But he still understood.

She was saying she would help him. She would protect him. Fight for him. Die for him.

She watched him as he drifted off. And right before he slipped under, he muttered something.

“Thanks Mum...”

**XXX**

Lalna woke up again when it was dark out. He realized a second later that the Endermother was still holding him in her arms. She hadn't moved from that position for hours.

“Feel better?” she asked, seeing that he was awake.

He nodded a bit, even though he noticed it was a bit harder to breathe and it was much colder.

“You look better,” she said.

“Really?”

“No.”

“I don't feel better either.”

She could tell. His skin had taken on a more pallid color, and his eyes were glassy. His fever was much higher, and she could see a few streaks of black creeping up the right side of his neck. That was a sign that the Void was advancing.

Suddenly, he started coughing. It sounded horrible, dry and weak. His face contorted in pain as each small convulsion wracked his dying body.

The fit stopped a minute later, and he closed his eyes, taking fast, shallow breaths. The coughing had triggered a large amount of pain in his chest and lower ribs, as well as his throat.

The Endermother noticed that he was clutching his throat, and she assumed it was raw from all the coughing.

“You feel dizzy?” she asked.

“I've been dizzy all day,” muttered Lalna, his voice hoarse.

The Endermother nodded, even though his eyes were closed. She gently set him down and scooped a bit more sand over him to keep him warm. He barely responded. Then she stood up and ducked out the door.

Lalna heard her go, but he felt too weak to be worried. He knew she would be back soon. He had to try to relax. If he could lower his heart rate, maybe he could slow the spread of his Ender curse. 

He started thinking of his friends. He reminded himself why he left. He knew he was dangerous. The Endermother was the only think keeping him in control. But that wouldn't last long. He needed to find a way to control the monster. To control himself without any other Ender intervention. 

Suddenly, a sharp blast of pain shot through his head. Trembling, he looked down and saw that his claws were emerging from his fingers. His hands were turning black again. The world around him started to go dark, and he felt the beast gaining strength, taking away his own.

No. He couldn't let it take over. He needed to find something to anchor his mind. Something he could focus on for control.

He thought of his friends. Sjin and Honeydew, Sips and even Xephos. However, he still felt anger when he thought about him.

Knowing that wouldn't help him focus, he forced Xephos out of his mind.

He started thinking about home. About Lomadia and Ridge and everyone else back there. He knew they were looking for him. They had to be.

_They're looking for me..._ he thought. _They care about me. They care if I live or die..._

Slowly, the headache ebbed away. His claws and most of the color retreated.

He had found his anchor.

The transformation _had_ taken a lot of energy, however, and he felt twice as weak and drained as before. He let himself go limp, his breathing shaky. The cold inside him intensified, and he curled up on his side in the fetal position.

The Endermother returned a minute later, holding something. However, when she saw Lalna curled up on the ground in pain, she set the object down and knelt down next to him. She carefully picked him up and held him close. He shuddered and relaxed a bit.

“Have another fit?” she asked.

He gave one small nod, too weak to do anything else.

She could tell. The dark color hadn't left his fingers, and it looked like the Void was spreading further up his neck.

She shook her head a bit and propped him upright. Then, holding him with one arm, she picked up the object she brought with her. Lalna opened his eyes and saw her holding what looked like a hard shelled fruit that had been cut in half. Inside it was a thick pink liquid.

She carefully handed it to him, and he examined it.

“Drink,” she said. “It helps.”

With a small sigh, he reluctantly drank some of the liquid. It was sickeningly sweet and thick as syrup, but it instantly made his throat feel better, and it made him less dizzy. He felt his energy returning.

“W-what is this stuff?” he asked, looking up at her.

“Fruits from cactus,” she said. “No water in it. Doesn't hurt.”

He nodded and drank more of the stuff until his stomach hurt.

The Endermother could tell that Lalna's strength was coming back, so she set him down.

“Want to look around?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” said Lalna, sitting upright and glancing out the door. It was dark outside, but he wasn't worried about the mobs.

The Endermother nodded, and she carefully helped him stand up. He almost instantly fell over, but she held him up.

“Legs are still shaky...” he muttered, keeping a death grip on her arm. A few minutes later, however, he was walking on his own.

She stood up and led him out the door.

He looked around and realized they were in a large village, and the buildings were entirely made of sandstone. What surprised him was that there were Endermen everywhere.

“What is this place...?” muttered Lalna, looking around.

“Farlands,” she said.

“Never heard of the Farlands before...” muttered Lalna.

The Endermother nodded. Then she turned and teleported on top of the roof of the building they were just in. Then she reached down, picked him up, and set him on the roof next to her.

From the roof, he could see most of the village. There were Endermen of all kinds milling around, some larger, some smaller. On the outskirts of the village, he saw two massive dark shapes.

“What are those?” he asked, pointing to them.

“Ender Golems,” said the Endermother. “They protect us.”

Lalna nodded and looked around again. He noticed several other Endermothers – they were a bit larger than the male Endermen, and each one had a baby Enderman following them around.

Then he realized something.

He turned to the Endermother and looked at her. She had several sets of scars scattered across her body, including over her missing eye. He recognized them as the work of the mutant.

He also noticed that she seemed to be the only one without a baby following her.

“The uh... the Golems... don't protect you from everything... do they...?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head, staring up at the half moon.

“Can they stop the mutant?”

She shook her head again.

“Too strong. Too smart. Can't fight it.”

“Is that how you lost your eye?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “And my son...”

“I'm sorry...” muttered Lalna, looking away.

She looked down at him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“You have family?” she asked.

“Kinda...” he said. “My friends are like my family... but that's it. I doubt I'll ever have kids, and I can't remember my parents... So... my friends are the only family I've got.”

She nodded, and they both sat in silence, looking up at the moon.

Lalna knew that in 48 hours, the moon would be full.

And he would be dead.


	11. Dying

Lalna spent the entire next morning vomiting up black blood and bits of frozen blood clots.

The Void was spreading, and it was now clearly interfering with his breathing. Between fits of vomiting up poison, he realized that when he inhaled, the entire right half of his chest didn't move. That meant that his right lung was no longer functioning. Not only that, but his stomach had completely shut down too, which was probably the cause for the mess he was making.

The Endermother stayed with him the whole time. She felt so bad that there was nothing she could do. She knew he was dehydrated, but he couldn't keep anything down long enough for it to have an effect. She knew he was in pain, but she couldn't help him.

He was dying, and the only thing she could do was keep him company and let him know that she would be with him until the end.

**XXX**

Xephos had been working since he found the blueprints, and now it was finally finished. It took him a while to fine tune it, but he managed it with Lalna's notes.

Quickly standing, he ran into the main room where the others were.

“Guys, I finished the Enderman finder!” he exclaimed.

“Good timing,” said Honeydew. “Look what I just finished.”

He held up the pendant, which hung on a thin silver chain. The pendant itself was rectangular with rounded edges, hollow in the center. Xephos stepped closer, and he could see the patterns Rythian had given them engraved in the silver pendant.

“Can this thing really capture one of those crystals?” muttered Xephos.

“I hope so,” said Honeydew. “Otherwise Lalna's going to be fucked.”

At that point, Sjin cleared his throat, and they looked over to where he stood next to Sips. They were both fully armored, and they had weapons.

“You guys should get armor if we're going to go after him,” said Sjin. “We've already got enough food.”

Xephos and Honeydew nodded. They spent the next half hour getting ready and gathering up everything they would need.

Finally, it was time to go.

Xephos stood in Lalna's room, looking around. He knew that once they left, they would never see the house again. Once they found Lalna and cured him, they were going to escape or die trying.

Xephos looked down at Lalna's journal, which he was holding in his hands. He had it memorized, all of Lalna's theories and ideas and ramblings. Even his goodbye note. 

With a small sigh, Xephos set the journal down on Lalna's bed. Then he turned and left the room.

They all gathered outside the front door. It was getting dark out now – they only had 24 hours to find and cure Lalna.

“Okay,” said Xephos, looking at the device, “the strongest signal of Ender activity seems to be coming from a desert beyond the forest. There's also a signal for other types of Ender energy. And...” He stopped and looked up. “One of them is an Enderbeast.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” asked Sips, glancing over Xephos' shoulder at the device.

“Well... the desert is about twenty miles from here,” said Xephos.

“Do we have enough time to make it there before sunset?” asked Sjin.

Xephos nodded. “We should, as long as we don't get lost or sidetracked.”

“Then in that case we're all doomed...” muttered Honeydew.

A minute later, they set off. Sjin cast one more long glance at the house he and Lalna had built. And then it was gone from view, never to be seen again.

**XXX**

Lalna spent the entire day immobilized with pain. He had stopped vomiting a few hours ago, but now he couldn't stop shaking. His head was pounding, and he was barely strong enough to keep his eyes open. The Endermother had been holding him in her arms since noon.

When darkness fell and the Farlands became more active, several other Endermen stopped by to see Lalna. He had never met them before, but according to the Endermother, all of the inhabitants of the Farlands had a sort of connection, like a sixth sense. They could tell when something was wrong. They could all tell he was dying.

The only thing that actually made Lalna smile that day was when another Endermother came to visit, and her baby came with her.

The little Enderling was instantly curious about Lalna, and she crept closer to inspect him. She picked up his clawed hand and inspected it, comparing it with her own claws. She looked at his tired eyes and saw that, even though they were glassy, they were the same color purple as hers.

After a few minutes, she reached the conclusion that he was one of them, then she scampered back to her mother, and they left.

The smile Lalna was left with after that stayed on his face until the moon rose high enough in the sky to start giving the Enderbeast strength.

He knew how to control it, but he didn't know how to stop it, so the Enderbeast began draining away his strength again. He had already been unable to retract his claws, and he could see perfectly in the dark, but now that the moon was in the sky, only a day away from being full, he felt his control slipping away, not enough to trigger a transformation but still enough to possibly kill him.

The Endermother was there to help him though. She healed him as much as she could, and as she did so, she explained to him how she did it. He focused all of his attention on her and listened to what she was saying.

He had never been a big fan of magic, but now that he had no choice, he figured he should learn as much as possible on the off chance he survived. Not to mention it kept his mind off the pain and weakness and cold.

She spent the rest of the night talking to him. If he focused only on her, he could keep it under control.

Whenever he felt his control slipping, he would look at the wound he had left on her arm from his first fit. It had healed, but it left scars.

He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want to hurt anybody else. So he resigned to hurting himself.

Throughout the night when the Enderbeast almost broke free, he would dig his claws into his leg. The pain would bring him back.

By the time the moon fell below the horizon, Lalna was beyond exhausted. The Enderbeast retreated, leaving him with the burning cold.

It was a good thing it retreated when it did, because Lalna could no longer feel the pain in his leg.

He was too tired to function. The second the sun broke the horizon, he was unconscious.

The Endermother remained where she was, holding him and watching over him, knowing that the rising sun marked his last day alive.

She simply sat and watched him sleep fitfully. And after making sure he really was asleep, she closed her eye and let out a small sob, pulling him closer to her chest.

She was going to lose another son to the mutant.

**XXX**

The others were on their way. They had stopped for the night, and they woke up as soon as the sun rose. 

However, as they were gathering their stuff to leave, Sjin noticed something.

“Uh, guys...” he stammered.

The others came over to see what he was staring at, but what they saw made them gasp.

Sjin had found a small shallow pond. The only thing about it was that the water in it was dark red.

“That... that looks like blood...” stammered Honeydew.

Xephos pulled out his scanner and knelt down next to the bloody pond.

“Uh... it is...” he said. “And-” He froze. “And I know whose blood it is...”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“He's not... still in there, is he...?” asked Sips after a minute.

Xephos pulled out the Enderman finder and stared at it for what felt like hours. Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

“No, he's not...” he said, taking a deep breath. “This says he's still in the desert.”

Everybody let out a sigh and stepped away from the pond.

“We best get moving,” said Xephos, shaking his head. “We don't have much time left.”

They nodded, but then Sjin realized something.

“Hang on... If Lalna fell into the pond and lost this much blood, then how did he even make it more than ten feet?” he asked.

“Maybe something took him,” said Honeydew ominously. They all looked over to see the dwarf pointing at something beyond the trees.

Cautiously, they moved into the small clearing Honeydew was pointing to. In the center, they found a few dried splotches of blood on the ground.

And leading into and out of the clearing were large footprints.

“Let me guess,” said Honeydew dryly. “An Enderman took him?”

Xephos nodded.

“Guys, can't we just follow the footprints?” asked Sjin. “They should lead us to the desert, right?”

Xephos shrugged. “As long as the Enderman didn't teleport when it had Lalna, then I guess we will be able to follow them...”

They all agreed, and a minute later, they were on the trail.

**XXX**

The Endermother was getting worried now. Half the day had come and gone, and Lalna still hadn't woken up. Four separate times, he had stopped breathing, but she managed to get him breathing again by healing him as much as she could.

However, that stopped working the fourth time, so she had to make a cut on his lower chest to bleed out the freezing blood and divert it away from his working lung. It seemed to work, but the blood he was losing was slowly crystallizing on his abdomen.

The day slowly grew later and later. The black streaks had spread up his neck and across the right side of his face. She could even feel a distinct temperature difference between where the Void was and where it wasn't. Finally, when the sun was close to setting, Lalna suddenly woke up.

He opened his eyes, and the Endermother was shocked to see that his eyes were completely glazed over with a teal blue haze, the same color as Ender pearls.

“What is it?” she asked.

“They're here...”

**XXX**

They found the edge of the forest around noon. It ended right at the edge of a massive desert. That was when the tracks ran out, having not been preserved in the dry sand.

“Guess we'll have to follow the scanner now,” said Xephos, glancing at the device.

They began the long, exhausting trek through the desert. It was long and arduous, and two separate times, Sjin and Honeydew nearly passed out from the heat.

However, as they walked, they found what looked like the remains of crumpled buildings. They also found several dead Endermen, which they were able to harvest several pearls and Eyes from. They also noticed that these Endermen had claw marks from the mutant Enderman on them. Apparently it was attacking anything it could.

What scared them was that these Endermen had only been dead for an hour. The mutant was close.

It took them longer than they thought, but they found the Farlands.

However, right as they reached the buildings, two enormous shadows appeared behind them. They whipped around and saw two enormous Ender Golems behind them.

Nobody moved for a moment. Then the Ender Golems suddenly sprung forward and picked them up, one of them holding Sjin and Honeydew and the other holding Xephos and Sips. The Golems held them under their arms so they couldn't get to their weapons.

They carried them into the village. As they walked past, all the inhabitants stopped and stared and chattered in their Ender language.

The Ender Golems carried them to a large building in the center of the village. Then they tossed them inside and shut the door.

“What the fuck just happened...?” muttered Xephos, sitting on the ground, confused. He pulled out the scanner, which showed that they were surrounded by Ender activity.

Sjin stood up and went to the door, looking out the small window. “Guys, they're guarding the door,” he said. One of the Ender Golems outside snarled at him, and he quickly scrambled away from the door, back to where the others sat in the center of the room.

“So I guess we're stuck here,” grumbled Honeydew.

“We're never gonna find Lalna in time...” said Sjin quietly.

Suddenly, they heard movement outside, and the door opened. A large Enderman ducked into the room.

Out of habit, they all averted their eyes, not wanting to anger it.

And because they averted their eyes, they didn't realize that the one eyed Enderman that had come into the room was holding Lalna.

“How in the hell did you guys find this place?” he asked.

Everyone jumped as if they had been electrocuted. They whipped around to see the Endermother holding a deathly pale and slightly bloody Lalna. She knelt down and gently set him on the ground, holding him upright as he was too weak to do so himself.

Sjin, Honeydew, and Sips all rushed over to Lalna, but Xephos hung back. He wanted to see how Lalna would react first.

Sjin and Honeydew were already hugging Lalna and asking him what was going on, while Sips, who didn't hug anybody except Sjin, was awkwardly patting him on the shoulder.

“Lalna, what happened to you?” asked Sjin, gesturing to the veins of black streaking across half of his face and the slightly terrifying teal blue glaze over his eyes. He couldn't see the rest of the damage because Lalna had put his lab coat back on.

“Oh yeah...” muttered Lalna. “About that... the uh... the poison is kind of freezing my blood and slowly killing me.”

“Way to sugarcoat it,” said Sips, glancing around, uncomfortable at the fact that the Endermother was sitting two feet away from him.

“But... Lalna, we found a cure!” exclaimed Honeydew. “We know what it is and we know how to get it!”

Lalna's eyes widened a bit, and he shifted over to leaning on Sjin, who didn't fail to notice how cold he was.

“You found a cure?” he asked.

Honeydew nodded and pulled out the amulet. “The thing that'll cure you is one of the crystal things that the Ender dragon uses to heal itself. We can use this to actually capture one!”

Lalna's expression darkened a bit, and the little bit of hope that had been there faded away.

“So you would need to go to the End to get it. That means you would have to get back to the portal, which is all the way back at the mountain. It would take too much time, because as soon as that sun sets, I'm as good as dead.”

They were all quiet for a minute.

“What?”

“How... how do you know the portal is under the mountain?” asked Xephos, finally gathering the courage to chime in.

“I uh... I could hear it... last time I was there...” he said, glancing down at his feet to avoid eye contact.

Suddenly, the Endermother said something. Lalna looked up at her and replied in the Ender language. She said something again, and Lalna's eyes widened. He looked at the others, but was confused when he saw that they didn't look excited.

“What happened this time?” he grumbled, his voice suddenly carrying a heavy Ender undertone.

“We didn't understand what she told you,” said Sjin. “We don't really speak Enderman.”

“Right...” said Lalna, forgetting that he had gained the ability to understand and speak the Ender language. “She said she knows a faster way to get back to the portal.”

They all looked excited after that.

“What's the faster way?” asked Honeydew.

Lalna looked up at the Endermother. She looked down and held out her hand. The others saw that she was holding a small simple Ender pearl.

Suddenly, purple magic began to swirl around it. A moment later, the Ender pearl was transformed into a glowing purple eye of Ender. She reached out and handed it to Honeydew.

“If you throw that on the ground, it'll teleport you to the portal,” said Lalna.

“Then why don't we go now?” exclaimed Xephos, glancing around frantically. He saw outside that the sun was only minutes away from setting, and soon the full moon would rise.

“It can only be used by humans,” said Lalna. “Or pretty much anything that isn't an Enderman. If you guys wanted to get to that portal, you would have to go without me.”

Sjin shook his head. “There has to be another way...”

Lalna glanced up at him. “Yeah, how? Maybe you haven't noticed, but I can't walk because my legs are frozen. The only thing that isn't frozen is my left arm!”

“Then what are we supposed to do...?” asked Honeydew quietly.

Lalna glanced down, avoiding eye contact. “I don't know...” he muttered. “have you tried to leave?”

“We can't,” said Sips. “We're stuck in this world.”

The Endermother spoke up, saying something to Lalna.

“She said it's because of the mutant Enderman,” Lalna translated. “This world is bonded to it, so it controls who leaves and who stays.”

“So does that mean if we kill it... we can leave?” asked Sjin. “We can escape?”

The Endermother nodded. Then she looked at Lalna, who grimaced a bit, remembering something he had figured out earlier.

“What's wrong?” asked Xephos.

“Nothing,” said Lalna. “We just have to kill the mutant Enderman, then you guys can leave.”

“What about you?” asked Sjin. “You didn't include yourself just then...”

Lalna shrugged, trying to avoid eye contact. “Guys, I don't be alive to leave. And even if we killed the mutant before I Change, I still wouldn't be able to leave without being cured first.”

“But... there has to be some way...” muttered Sjin.

Lalna sighed a bit, which turned into a weak cough. A bit of black blood trickled out of his mouth.

“Shit...” he muttered, wiping away the blood. Then he glanced out the window and saw that the sun was setting. They all grew quiet and watched as the sun sank below the horizon.

Lalna's last day was up, and the moon would be rising within minutes.

He was out of time.


	12. Out of Time

They spent Lalna's last few minutes in silence. He was paralyzed with fear. Not only that, but the intense cold suddenly began to spread, making it much harder to breathe.

“Guys...” he choked out. “I'll find it... After... after I Change, I'll f-find the mutant and k-kill it... Just... promise me you'll leave... as soon as it's dead...”

Sjin shook his head. “But we can't leave without you...”

“You have to...” he said, grimacing in pain. His hands started to change color, and they realized that the full moon had begun it's ascent into the night sky.

“Please... run...” Lalna choked out, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his hands into fists, digging his claws into the palms of his hands.

The Endermother quickly moved forward and took Lalna from Sjin, gesturing for them to back away.

And then suddenly, they heard a long chilling roar, which echoed through the night.

They all froze in fear.

The mutant Enderman had come.

The Endermother quickly made a gesture for the four non Ender humans to hide, then she took Lalna, who was shaking with pain and doing everything he could to hold back the Change, and carried him outside.

Then she saw the mutant Enderman.

It was just on the edge of the Farlands. The Golems were attacking it, but the monster was much stronger.

A wave of anger swept over the Endermother, and she would have rushed to fight the monster if it weren't for Lalna, who was whimpering in pain as the Change progressed.

She would have a chance to avenge her sons, one dead and the other dying, but not now. Not yet.

Quickly turning and hoping the Golems would keep the monster distracted longer, she turned and ran towards the far edge of the Farlands. There, she found a large building and carried Lalna around behind it.

By now, his hair had turned black, and his skin had fully changed to the same color as the streaks of poison. The blue haze over his eyes had turned purple, and his eyes were now glowing bright in the darkness.

“A-are... they... s-safe...?” he managed to force out, his entire body shaking with energy as the Enderbeast tried to break free.

The Endermother nodded.

Lalna let a weak smile creep onto his face. And then he grimaced and cried out, and the Enderbeast broke free.

She set him down and backed up, watching with despair as his human body was destroyed and replaced by the Enderbeast. She knew that this marked the end. Once the full moon fell, he would return to a body that was weak and broken and unable to support life.

In a way, Lalna was already dead.

**XXX**

He was in so much pain that it was a relief when he transformed. The agony of his bones breaking and lengthening and realigning was nothing compared to the misery he had endured for the past few days.

He felt the crystals inside him shatter, and suddenly he could breathe again.

He took a long, deep breath. The pain was gone. He felt strong and powerful. He felt like he could do anything. Kill anyone.

Slowly, he looked up. Through the blue haze of his distorted vision, he could see the Endermother. He didn't recognize her at first. All he saw was an enemy, a possible threat.

He snarled a bit and tensed to lunge. Then she started humming.

He froze. The distortion faded, and he could see and hear clearly again. The Endermother stood in front of him, looking relieved.

Lalna looked around, a bit overwhelmed. This was his first time being fully aware while in his Enderbeast form. He could see and hear and sense things a thousand times better. His night vision was twice as strong, and he could see perfectly through the darkness.

And then he heard the chilling roar of the mutant Enderman.

He looked at the Endermother one last time before turning and stepping out into the open.

The mutant Enderman stood at the other end of the long road. It was waiting for him.

Lalna glared at the mutant. This monster was the cause of all his pain and suffering. But this was the end. He was going to kill the abomination and free his friends from this hell. Even if he died trying.

Rage building inside of him, he sprinted forward at a blinding speed, rushing the mutant.

It was ready though. The monster didn't move until a split second before Lalna tore it open. Then it teleported directly behind Lalna, grabbed him by the arm, and flung him through a building.

Lalna was up in an instant, barely feeling the pain. There was so much energy coursing through his veins. It felt like someone had started a fire in his chest.

Snarling, Lalna lunged at the mutant again, grabbing ahold of it before it could teleport. However, the monster was much larger and stronger than him, so he didn't have time to do any damage before it picked him up and threw him again.

This time, Lalna cracked his head against a thick sandstone wall, and he was knocked senseless for a second. However, when his vision came back a split second later, his mind was more clear, not as saturated with rage and vengeance.

He became calm, calculating.

The mutant Enderman was much larger and stronger than him. However, he was faster and smarter. He couldn't rely on his strength alone to defeat the monster. He had to be logical and tactical. He had to outsmart it.

He stood once again, facing the beast. He didn't move, and neither did the abomination.

It was waiting for him to make the first move.

So Lalna stood there in a pile of rubble, waiting, a low growl emanating from his chest. Through some sort of sixth sense, he could feel the mutant getting angrier.

Suddenly, Lalna lunged to the right. The mutant lunged at him much faster. So fast it couldn't stop when Lalna suddenly ducked to the left.

The mutant slammed right into the wall of the building Lalna had hit just a minute ago. Before it could turn around, however, Lalna was there. He grabbed the mutant by the back of the neck and slammed it against the wall, holding it there. Then with his free hand, he started slashing at it's back. The mutant roared and whipped around, it's elbow connecting solidly with Lalna's jaw.

He staggered back, tasting blood. Then the mutant turned and brought it's claw down, aiming for his throat.

Instead of trying to block the attack, Lalna teleported and landed right behind the mutant, who was thrown off balance when it's claws sliced through air instead of flesh.

Lalna took the opportunity to slice the mutant's Achilles' tendons, bringing it to it's knees.

He stepped forward and pressed his foot against the mutant's back, forcing it into the ground. Then he reached down, grabbed both of the mutant's arms, and pulled back as hard as he could. There was a sickening _snap_ as the mutant Enderman's arms were dislocated.

The monster let out a roar of pain. Suddenly, purple magic started to swirl around it's hands, which Lalna realized too late he was holding up right next to his face.

The magic shot forward and hit him, blinding him. He staggered back until he hit a wall, and because he still didn't know how to heal himself, he was forced to wait out the effects.

He could hear the mutant clambering to it's feet. He tensed, expecting it to attack him while he was vulnerable. But then he heard it teleport, and he realized that it couldn't fight him very well with both arms dislocated and it's Achilles' tendons cut.

After another few seconds, the effects of the magic wore off and Lalna could see again. He quickly looked around and saw that the monster was nowhere to be seen.

Then he realized that he could see a trail of fading purple particles leading deeper into the Farlands. Cautiously, he followed them.

Meanwhile, the Endermother had returned to the building where the other four were hiding. They jumped when they saw her suddenly appear, but then they recognized her.

She quickly gestured for them to follow her, and to stay quiet. She was going to take them somewhere safe.

They only made it about two buildings away before the mutant Endermen appeared right behind them.

The Endermother quickly grabbed the three humans and the dwarf and teleported into the closest building, but the mutant wasn't interested in them yet. It had healed, and now it was pissed.

It was focusing on the Enderbeast.

Lalna spotted it and stepped forward, facing it.

The mutant snarled, and then let out a deafening roar of fury. Then, all of a sudden, a second pair of arms appeared on the mutant.

Lalna's eyes widened.

“Well that's new...” he muttered to himself.

The mutant Enderman lunged at him and knocked him over, one pair of hands locked around his throat, the other pair slashing at his chest.

Before it could do too much damage, Lalna pulled his feet up and kicked the mutant in the chest, throwing it back. However, when he stood up, he felt the sharp pain in his chest, and he glanced down to see that the mutant's claws had torn him up quite a bit, and he was bleeding heavily.

However, he didn't have time to attempt to heal himself, because the mutant Enderman was advancing on him again.

It lunged at him, but Lalna ducked under it's claws. When he did so, he shot forward and dug his claws into the mutant's chest, slicing it down the middle.

The mutant staggered back, slicing at Lalna but missing. It was thrown off balance by this again, so Lalna lunged at it and slammed into it's midsection, knocking it backwards. 

They both crashed straight through a building, breaking through one wall and out the other side.

Of course, the building they broke through happened to be the one the others were hiding in. They all jumped in shock and watched as the two smashed through the other wall, snarls and growls and monstrous screams echoing through the now abandoned buildings.

They sat frozen for a second before Honeydew glanced at Xephos and nudged him, gesturing to the second hole in the wall. Xephos nodded, and they both quickly jumped to their feet and ran after Lalna and the mutant. Sips and Sjin glanced at each other before following them a split second later.

The Endermother stared after them for a moment before facepalming, then running after them.

Meanwhile, Lalna was still fighting. The mutant had managed to score several hits, one especially painful one across the back of his neck. Lalna, however, had nearly gouged out one of the mutant's eyes. But the mutant was a lot more difficult to fight with it's extra set of arms.

Suddenly, the mutant managed to grab Lalna by the throat with it's first pair of hands, and with it's second pair it grabbed his arms, immobilizing them. Then it picked Lalna up and slammed him against a wall several times. There was a loud _crack_ , and Lalna felt a blinding white pain shoot through his head.

He went limp, feeling blood running down his back and neck.

The mutant dropped him, and he slid into a slumped over sitting position, leaving a thick trail of blood on the wall. Lalna tried to stand, but he couldn't move his arms or legs.

The mutant let out a chilling noise that sounded like a laugh. Then it raised a clawed hand, prepared to slice Lalna's throat.

Suddenly, it let out a cry of pain and staggered away from Lalna. It whipped around and looked down, seeing two arrows imbedded in it's side.

It looked up and saw Xephos and Sjin, both of them holding bows. Sips and Honeydew stood beside them, holding swords.

The mutant snarled. It's lower face split open into a mouth, and it roared at them.

They screamed and ran in four different directions.

The mutant ran over to where it had seen them run from, and it looked around, listening. These little humans were very good at hiding though.

Suddenly, it heard movement. It teleported to the building where it heard the movement and smashed it's arm through the wall, grabbing ahold of one of the humans. It pulled it's arm back, pulling Sips through the wall and holding him up.

Sips let out a yelp and swung his sword, which connected with the arm holding him. At the same time, Sjin appeared and stabbed it in the leg.

Shocked, the mutant dropped Sips, and as soon as he hit the ground, both he and Sjin sliced at it's legs.

They successfully scored a hit, and the mutant dropped. However, when it hit the ground, it whipped one of it's arms around and backhanded Sjin, sending him flying into the side of a building, where he hit with a crash and dropped to the ground unconscious. Sips screamed and ran over to him.

Suddenly, Xephos and Honeydew appeared. They both went for the back of the mutant's neck, attempting to cut it's head off and end this.

Suddenly, the second pair of arms shot out at them. The left hand successfully grabbed Xephos around the midsection, making him drop his sword in surprise. The right hand tried to grab Honeydew, but the dwarf managed to deter it by sinking his axe into the arm, nearly severing the hand.

Just then, the mutant's tendons finished healing, and it stood up to it's full height, still holding Xephos.

Honeydew saw this, and he tried to hack off the mutant's leg with his axe, but the mutant quickly pinned him down with it's massive foot, preventing him from attacking.

It looked at Xephos, who was trying with all his might to free himself.

The mutant made another laughing noise before clenching it's hand and effectively crushing half of Xephos' ribs.

Xephos made a small choking noise, and a bit of blood started to drip out of his mouth.

Right at that moment, Honeydew managed to get his axe free. He swung at the mutant and sliced it's leg open.

The mutant staggered back in shock, dropping Xephos, who crumpled in a heap on the ground.

Suddenly, there was a glint of metal in the light of the falling moon, followed by the sound of a blade sinking into flesh.

While the mutant was distracted pulling Sips' thrown sword out of it's back, Honeydew grabbed Xephos and dragged him to safety.

The mutant had now turned to face Sips. He was unarmed, but he didn't run. Instead, he stood his ground, holding his arms out to try and protect Sjin as much as he could.

Suddenly, a noise caught the mutant's attention. It whipped around and saw that Lalna was no longer alone. The Endermother had appeared, and she was kneeling in front of Lalna, having mostly healed his cracked skull.

The mutant snarled at her, and she jumped up when she realized that the mutant had turned it's focus back to Lalna.

Then she narrowed her eye in anger and hatred. This was the time for vengeance.

She quickly placed herself between Lalna and the mutant. It snarled at her, and she snarled back. The mutant was twice her size, but she didn't care. She would do whatever it took to protect her son.

Suddenly, she sprinted forward before teleporting right behind the mutant. She didn't attack it though.

The mutant saw her and whipped around, swiping at her, but she teleported again. This went on for several minutes, the mutant becoming more and more pissed. It couldn't keep up with her.

Then, after one final spin, it staggered dizzily. The Endermother saw her opportunity.

Faster than a bolt of lightning, she latched onto the mutant's back and began ripping away large chunks of flesh. She managed to rip off it's second left arm before it managed to shake her off.

As soon as she hit the ground, she tried to teleport, but the mutant was expecting it.

She teleported right behind it, but it was ready. It reached out and grabbed her by the throat, holding her up. But she wouldn't go down without a fight. She clawed and scratched at the hands holding her, nearly severing them. Then she kicked it in the abdomen so hard that she ruptured one of it's internal organs.

The mutant quickly flung her to the ground, staggering backwards.

Then out of the corner of it's eye, it saw Lalna moving. He was regaining consciousness, and when he spotted the mutant, he slowly started to stand.

The mutant saw that he was still too weak and disoriented to defend himself. It had to kill him now or it might not get another chance.

It took one step towards Lalna. And then the Endermother was again sinking her claws into it's back. It didn't have time to react before she reached around and clawed at it's face, gouging out it's right eye.

The mutant reached back and took hold of the Endermother. Then it pulled her over it's head and slammed her into the ground again.

And before she had a chance to defend herself, the mutant plunged it's claws into her chest and throat, tearing them open and sending blood splattering everywhere.

Lalna screamed and jumped to his feet. But before he could attack the mutant, another arrow shot through the night and hit the mutant in the shoulder, just an inch below it's neck.

Lalna didn't see who shot the arrow, but he saw the mutant turn and run after it.

He quickly stumbled over to the Endermother, who was lying on the ground, shaking and convulsing as she lost more blood. She couldn't heal herself fast enough.

Lalna knelt down next to her and carefully picked her up, holding her in his arms the same way she had held him when she saved him.

She looked up at him, her expression sad. She didn't speak. She simply reached up with a bloody hand and brushed a bit of hair out of his face. Then she closed her eye, her hand fell to her side, and she was gone.

Lalna couldn't move. He couldn't think. He didn't know what to do.

Suddenly, a scream from one of the others snapped him back into reality. He looked over to see that they had been cornered.

He cast one last sorrowful glance at the Endermother before carefully setting her body down. Then he stood, facing the mutant, rage surging through him.

The mutant's back was to him. It was raising a clawed hand to strike at his friends.

Anger building within him, he teleported right behind the mutant and stabbed it straight through the back with his claws. The claws burst through the other side of the mutant's chest.

Using all of his remaining strength, Lalna lifted the mutant in the air with the claws he had just stabbed it with, and he slammed it down directly on it's head. Dark blood splattered from the wounds on it's chest and face.

Lalna instantly attacked it with as much ferocity as a monster could.

The others were in shock, watching Lalna rip the mutant to shreds, but something caught Xephos' attention that snapped them out of it.

“Guys...” he coughed out, pointing towards the east horizon. It was now glowing orange. The sun would rise in minutes.

Lalna was out of time.

He seemed to realize it too. Seemed to feel himself getting weaker. He knew he didn't have a second to lose, so he ripped off the mutant's right arm.

He failed to notice that the mutant had stabbed him in the chest several times. He failed to notice how much he was bleeding. He also failed to notice how his wounds began to glow bright purple as something inside him finally clicked and they healed themselves.

The mutant also seemed to realize the sun was rising. It knew it was dying – three of it's internal organs had been ruptured now, and it was bleeding heavily from the wounds Lalna and the Endermother had inflicted. But if it could stay alive until the sun broke the horizon, it would finally be able to take it's victim.

Lalna had it pinned down, but his strength was fading, and he was slowly starting to return to his normal size.

He knew he wouldn't be able to hold down the mutant much longer. It would kill him and then turn on his friends.

He glanced at them one last time before finding the strength to do what he had to.

Using every last ounce of strength the moon had provided, he slashed open the mutant's throat, ripping out everything important he could get his hands on. He didn't stop until he saw the mutant's spine.

The mutant let out a wet choking noise. Then it went limp, it's remaining eye staring up at the orange sky.

Lalna stepped away from the mutant. He looked over at his friends, but right at that moment, the moon disappeared and the sun broke the horizon.

With a small cry of pain, Lalna dropped to the ground, shaking. His strength had suddenly gone, and he could now feel the crippling pain all over his body. All the energy flooded from his body so fast that it made him feel nauseous, and the cold instantly returned, this time stronger than ever.

It started at the old wound on his side and spread faster than it had before. He managed to take one final breath before the cold froze the blood in his lungs.

And he knew a split second later when it hit his heart, and he felt the freezing pain explode all over his body.

He heard his friends calling to him, but it was already too late. The poison had reached his heart.

A second later, his heart stopped beating, and he collapsed.

Xephos tried to run to him, but Honeydew suddenly grabbed him and pulled him back.

The mutant wasn't dead yet.

It slowly turned it's head and looked at Lalna, who was crumpled on the ground dangerously close.

And before they could stop it, it raised a clawed hand and sunk it's talons into Lalna's chest. There was a loud _crack_ as it broke through the crystals encasing Lalna's heart. But what was even more worrying was the fact that Lalna didn't respond.

He couldn't. He was already dead.

The mutant looked up at them, looking Xephos directly in the eye. And then it disappeared, taking Lalna's body with it.

“NO!” cried Xephos, snapping out of his trance.

“What happened?” exclaimed Honeydew. “Where did they go?!”

Xephos was quiet. He had already pulled out the tracker.

“Guys...” he said, his voice no more than a whisper. “They're in the End...”


	13. The End

The others quickly gathered around Xephos, staring at the device. They could clearly see the two different signals.

Both of the signals were weak, but they were still there.

Lalna's signal was still there. It could only be there if he was still alive.

“Oh my gods,” choked out Xephos. “Lalna's still alive...”

“But... but we saw that thing stab him through the chest!” exclaimed Honeydew. “He even turned back into a human, and the poison started killing him!”

Xephos shook his head. “We would have know if he had died, right? We would have felt it...”

Sjin nodded. “But if it's still showing both of them, doesn't that mean the mutant is still alive too?”

No sooner did he say that than the mutant's signal on the tracker disappeared. And a split second later, an explosion rocked the ground, knocking them all to their knees. The sun disappeared and the sky above them suddenly turned as black as night, and the air became so cold they could see their breath. They could hear the distant sounds of explosions and feel the tremors in the sand beneath their feet.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” shouted Sips in a panic as they all scrambled back to their feet.

“Do you remember what Lalna said...?” asked Xephos, having to nearly shout over the sounds of the explosions and the sudden howling wind that had almost knocked them over again. “He said the world was bonded to the mutant Enderman! It controlled who stayed and who left. If the mutant is dead, the world doesn't have anything to anchor it! It's going to crash!”

Another violent tremor shook the ground, nearly knocking them over.

“But if the mutant's dead, doesn't that mean we can leave?” asked Sips.

They all froze, and in that split second, they realized that they had regained the ability to jump from this world back home.

“But... Lalna can't leave,” said Sjin. “He can't leave until he's cured, right? We have to go get him!”

Xephos nodded. “You're right. We can't just leave him here...”

Honeydew stepped forward, holding up the portal the Endermother had given him. “Time to use this?”

Xephos nodded. They all then stepped into a small huddle, and Honeydew threw the portal at the ground.

It hit the sand with a sharp _crack_ , and a thick purple smoke was released. It surrounded them, and a split second later, the wind and sound of the explosions stopped. They could still feel the tremors though.

They found themselves standing in front of the End Portal.

The portal wasn't lit, but they were expecting that. They had brought all the Eyes of Ender from the house, and they had the ones they collected from the dead Endermen in the desert.

As they completed the portal, however, Sjin brought up a very important question.

“Guys, what do you think we're going to find in there...?” he asked nervously.

Xephos stopped. “Well, so far the Overworld and the Nether have been insanely dangerous, so I wouldn't be surprised if the End is just as bad.”

Sjin started to look pale.

After another minute, they snapped the last Eye of Ender into place, and the portal sparked to life.

They all stepped away for a moment, checking to make sure they had everything and were ready to jump into whatever unknown horrors the End was harboring.

While everyone else was busy, Xephos stepped aside, still doing his best not to show how much pain he was in. He was dizzy and he could barely breathe. He tasted blood in the back of his throat.

Making sure nobody was looking, he faced the wall and lifted up his shirt, inspecting the damage the mutant had done by crushing his ribcage. 

He was shocked at the damage. His entire abdomen was bruised black and purple, and on his right side, he could see that one of the bones had broken his skin and was sticking out.

He felt nauseous, but at the same time, he was amazed with how much adrenaline could dull pain. He was certain that as soon as this was over, he wouldn't be able to move, let alone breathe.

Taking shallow breaths to prolong the inevitable puncture of one or both of his lungs. Xephos strapped on a chest plate and pulled out his sword. He looked over at the others and saw that they too were ready.

The tremors were getting stronger and the sound of explosions were getting louder. The air slowly became colder. They were out of time.

“I just hope the End is the last to crash,” gasped out Xephos, glancing at the others as they all stepped up to the portal.

Then they all held their breath and jumped.

Five minutes later, the Overworld was destroyed.

**XXX**

The End was much colder than the Overworld. It always was, but it wasn't normally this bad.

They landed near the edge, but within seconds they were all on their feet, looking around. It all seemed suspiciously quiet.

They slowly walked deeper into the End. All around them stood Endermen, who didn't move. They simply watched them. None of them got angry when they were looked at.

They didn't even know where the Ender Dragon was.

And then they saw the blood. Dark, thick blood that glistened in the light of the crystals on the obsidian pillars.

They cautiously followed the trail to the center of the End. When they came around the corner of another pillar, they saw the disemboweled and decapitated body of the mutant Enderman.

Behind it, slumped over against another pillar, was Lalna. He wasn't moving, and there was a gaping wound on his chest from where the mutant had clawed him before teleporting him. His lab coat was torn to shreds, and his goggles were completely shattered, hanging around his neck. He was covered in blood that looked like a mix between his own and the mutant's. It looked like he was dead, but his signal still showed on the tracker.

They crept a bit closer, Xephos noticing that his hair was still black and his skin was still dark.

Honeydew pulled out the pendant, scanning around for a relatively short obsidian pillar that he could capture a crystal from.

Sips and Sjin were still looking around, paranoid about the mysterious lack of Ender Dragon. They hung back a bit from the other two, scanning the horizon for the distinct silhouette, listening for the chilling roar that always preceded an attack.

Xephos slowly made his way over to Lalna. He knelt down in front of him and reached out, carefully feeling for a pulse.

He couldn't find his heartbeat, and his skin was ice cold. He wasn't breathing either.

Xephos stared for a minute before turning to face Honeydew.

Before he could say anything, however, a loud roar cut through the cold air.

Everybody froze. Then they looked up.

The Ender Dragon had revealed herself. She was perched on top of the very pillar Lalna was leaning against. She glared down at them, baring her teeth.

But that wasn't what scared them. It was the fact that she had bright glowing blue eyes. And she was twice the size of a normal dragon.

With another roar, she took off, circling them.

“Uh, we need a plan!” exclaimed Honeydew.

Xephos gulped. “Sips, Sjin, keep the dragon distracted! Honeydew, get one of those fucking crystals! I'll stay with Lalna.”

They nodded, and Honeydew ran for the nearest pillar while Sips and Sjin ran towards the further edge of the End, taking shots at the dragon to keep her attention on them.

Xephos painfully knelt back down in front of Lalna, the taste of blood still strong in his mouth. He was starting to get dizzier as he lost more blood internally.

He felt for a pulse again, but still found nothing. Then he realized something. Lalna was still alive because he was in the End. All the crystals around him were constantly healing him, but none of them were close enough to actually cure him.

Just then, Xephos heard someone cry out. He looked over to see that the Ender Dragon had swooped down at Honeydew and come so close he fell off the ladder he had been climbing. When he fell, the pendant fell out of his hand and skidded across the Endstone, landing right at Sjin's feet. He picked it up and tossed it to Honeydew.

And then he got an idea.

“Honeydew!” he exclaimed, quickly firing an arrow as the dragon swooped at them. “I have an idea! Get the crystal! I know how to keep her distracted.”

“What the hell are you-” Sips stopped when he realized Sjin had run for one of the tallest pillars near the further edge of the End. He ran after him, while Honeydew, who realized what Sjin was going to do, ran back to the short pillar and climbed up again.

In the center of the End, Xephos watched with fear. The Ender Dragon was ignoring him and Lalna.

Then suddenly, as soon as Lalna's name crossed his mind, he felt himself being grabbed by the throat, and the next thing he knew, he had been slammed against the obsidian pillar, held by his throat.

Xephos gasped in shock and pain, nearly blinded by the white hot agony in his chest.

A second later, his vision cleared, and he could see.

Lalna was standing there, holding him by the throat. He was standing so still that Xephos could tell he still wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse.

But it was Lalna's eyes that scared him the most.

They were completely purple, glowing bright against the darkness.

He didn't speak. He just stood there, holding Xephos and waiting for him to choke on his own blood.

Back on the far side of the End, Sips was still shooting at the Ender Dragon to keep it distracted. Honeydew had finished building a ladder up to the top of the pillar, and he was waiting for a signal from Sjin, who had managed to climb to the top of one of the tallest pillars.

They had figured out that when Honeydew tried to steal a crystal, the Ender Dragon would ignore the others and attack him.

Sjin hoped that by being level with the dragon, he could keep it's attention away from Honeydew. However, because he was so close to the crystals, the dragon kept circling him. Sips managed to keep the dragon at bay with the constant volley of arrows.

As soon as the dragon had flown far enough away, Sjin shouted to Honeydew.

“NOW!” he screamed.

Honeydew quickly jumped towards the crystal, holding out the pendant. The crystal shuddered and shook and was drawn in to the center of the pendant, shrinking to fit within the parameters. There was a sharp crackling noise, and then the process had finished. They had the Ender crystal.

And then Honeydew looked up and realized that the Ender Dragon was pissed. She was speeding straight towards him, and he knew he didn't have time to get out of the way.

Sjin saw this too. In a split second, he turned and smashed the crystal he was standing next to, causing it to explode. The blast left a large burn on his arm.

The Ender Dragon practically stopped midair and whipped around to face Sjin. It hovered there, only a hundred feet away from him, ignoring all the arrows Sips was shooting.

Sjin froze, not knowing what to do. He and the dragon stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Her glowing blue eyes seemed to pierce straight through him.

And then she opened her mouth and shot an enormous blast of icy fire at him. It hit him directly in the chest, and he staggered backwards and fell off the pillar.

Sips caught him and quickly pulled him around to the far side of the pillar, out of the dragon's sight. Then he carefully laid him down.

Sjin was trembling and gasping for breath. His eyes were open but they were glassy. There was a deep wound on the front of his chest, which was black with frostbite. Sips could see veins of ice creeping up his neck.

“Sjin,” he whispered. “Leave. Go back home.”

Sjin shook his head a bit. “I... can't...”

“Sjin, if you stay here you'll die. Go back home, I'll meet you there in a few minutes. We'll be fine here...”

Slowly, Sjin nodded and closed his eyes. A moment later, he vanished.

He had left the corrupted and dying world.

**XXX**

Lalna couldn't feel anything. He couldn't feel pain. He didn't feel tired. He didn't feel cold.

He felt like he was in a coma. In a trance.

He knew something was happening, but his mind was empty and silent, and his vision was purple and distorted.

Finally, he slowly began to hear a distant voice. It was calling to him. Saying a name that he recognized.

_“Lalna...”_

It took a moment for him to remember that this name seemed so familiar because it was his.

Someone was calling him.

Then his vision snapped into focus, and he saw himself holding Xephos by the throat. His friend looked unconscious, and there was so much blood coming out of his mouth that it had dripped down onto Lalna's arm and hand.

He jumped back with a gasp, suddenly starting to breathe again. His cold heart began to beat.

He dropped Xephos and quickly caught him under the arms, gently lowering him to the ground and leaning him up against the obsidian tower.

“Xeph...” he whispered, his voice rough. He shook his shoulder a bit, and after a breathless moment, Xephos coughed a bit and opened his eyes. He looked up at Lalna for a moment before closing his eyes again, barely breathing.

Lalna shook his head a bit, looking around. The others were too far away to help, and they all looked busy, with Sips shooting at the dragon and Honeydew and Sjin standing on the pillars.

He had to help Xephos by himself. But the Enderbeast was still close at hand. He could still feel it's rage, which had lingered since the first Change.

He felt his mind start to slip away, but he knew he couldn't allow it. The Enderbeast hated Xephos, and one more injury could kill him. He had to focus. Find an anchor. Just thinking of home wasn't enough. He needed a stronger emotion.

Pain. That would keep him human, even in a place like this.

He thought of the Endermother.

It worked. He felt like he was physically in pain thinking about her. She had given her life to save his. He wasn't about to waste it.

He thought of what she did. She had healed him. Used her own energy to accelerate his healing.

Taking a deep breath to stop his hands from shaking, he carefully reached out and gently placed his hands on Xephos' bleeding chest.

He had only just figured out how to heal himself. He had no idea how to heal someone else.

He thought about what the Endermother had taught him. To create a channel and visualize it. To use this image to trade energy over to Xephos.

He didn't have much energy to begin with, but the situation was dire. He had to keep Xephos alive long enough for him to wake up and escape.

He took a deep breath and forced his chaotic mind to focus. Then the Ender part of his mind took over, and he felt a warm sensation in his arm and hand as he healed Xephos.

It took a second, but Xephos stopped bleeding as heavily, and he looked like he was breathing a bit easier.

After a few more seconds, Lalna pulled his hand back. A second later, any shred of warmth disappeared, and he felt the cold again. Not only that, but he felt incredibly weak and lethargic, having given most of his energy to Xephos.

“Xeph...” he choked out.

The spaceman was unresponsive for a moment.

And then Sjin screamed, snapping them both into alert mode.

They watched in horror as Sjin was frozen by the Ender Dragon. They watched him fall, rooted to where they sat, unable to move. They watched Sips catch him, and a moment later, they all felt him disappear from the world.

Sjin had left.

Lalna slowly looked back at Xephos.

“Your turn,” he said quietly.

Xephos looked pained by this. “Please be careful...” he choked out. Then he closed his eyes and disappeared, leaving them behind.

In the split second after Xephos disappeared, Lalna felt a stab of guilt so strong that he grimaced.

It was all his fault that his friends were here, being injured or nearly killed.

He had to end this.

**XXX**

Honeydew held the pendant close to his chest. The dragon was circling again, managing to dodge all the arrows Sips was shooting.

He knew he had to get the pendant to Lalna. Once he did, they would all be able to leave.

He was hiding behind one of the many pillars of obsidian. Every time the dragon turned it's back to circle around Sips, he would run behind the next pillar.

He was only a few pillars away from Lalna when Sips ran out of arrows.

The Ender Dragon seemed to know instantly. It suddenly swooped down and grabbed Sips in its claws. He screamed as the dragon carried him high in the air. Then she flew over the edge and dropped him.

Honeydew felt his heart stop, but a second before Sips fell into the Void, he disappeared, leaving the world to avoid dying.

And because Sips left, the dragon turned and flew straight at Honeydew.

And then a blast of purple magic shot out of nowhere and hit the Ender Dragon straight in the eye. It screeched in pain and pulled back, flying to the other side of the End.

Honeydew looked over and saw Lalna. His hands were glowing bright purple.

Then he dropped to his knees.

Honeydew quickly ran over to him and saw that his nose had started bleeding.

“What the hell was that?” he exclaimed.

Lalna just shook his head. “Remind me... never to... to do that... again...” he gasped out, having clearly used the last vestiges of his energy to create the magic.

Honeydew shook his head and looked over at the Ender Dragon. She was healing quickly.

He turned back to Lalna and held out the pendant. Lalna's eyes widened, and he raised his hand to take it, but he couldn't. He was too weak.

“Let me help you,” said Honeydew. Then he put the amulet around Lalna's neck.

The effect was instantaneous. His hair and skin returned to normal, and his eyes turned green again. He sat up, shocked at how quickly he felt normal again. It was as if the Enderbeast suddenly disappeared.

Suddenly, the ground was rocked by an explosion. Across the End, the dragon screeched. The Endermen all around them became panicked and teleported erratically.

And then the sky cracked open in a blinding white light.

The End began to crash.

“Leave...” said Lalna.

“I want to make sure you can leave too!” shouted Honeydew, sounding a lot less calm than Lalna did.

“Fine,” said Lalna. “We'll leave together.”

Honeydew nodded. Lalna started counting.

“One...”

The obsidian towers around them began to crumble.

“Two...”

The sky became completely white, and ice crystals started to form on their skin.

“Three...”

Honeydew and Lalna disappeared, leaving the world.

Not ten seconds later, the End crumbled and fell into the Void, taking everything with it.

**XXX**

**Epilogue**

Lalna gasped and sat bolt upright in his bed. He looked around and nearly cried in relief. He was back home, in his castle.

He took a deep breath. Then he looked down and saw the glowing purple amulet hanging around his neck.

With trembling hands, he held it up to inspect it closer. The crystal itself seemed to have shrunk perfectly to fit the confines of the pendant, but it still gave off the same amount of energy. He noticed there were runes carved into the sides of the silver pendant holding the crystal. From his dabbles in magic, he recognized them as runes of containment or capture.

All of a sudden, Xephos and Honeydew burst through the door, breaking his train of thought.

“LALNA!” they both exclaimed, running over and hugging him. He hugged them back and laughed, unable to say anything. He was relieved beyond belief that they were both okay and uninjured. 

“I'm so glad you're okay...” he said quietly after finally regaining the ability to speak. He pulled back a bit. “Are Sips and Sjin okay? Did they make it back?”

Honeydew nodded. “We just came from Sipsco. They're fine, both of them.”

Lalna breathed a sigh of relief. “Everybody's alright?”

They nodded.

“Are you okay?” asked Xephos, glancing down at the amulet shining brightly around Lalna's neck. “Are you _going_ to be okay?”

Lalna glanced down at the amulet. Slowly, he smiled. As long as he had it, the monster inside him couldn't break free.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I'm gonna be okay...”

Suddenly, there was a light knock on the door. Then the door opened and Rythian stepped into the room.

Lalna was shocked to see him, but Xephos and Honeydew seemed relieved.

“Glad to see you made it,” said Rythian quietly, looking a bit uncomfortable. He glanced down at the amulet around Lalna's neck.

“We would have been fucked without your help,” said Xephos.

Lalna glanced between them. He remembered hearing Rythian tell them he was a danger to himself and others, but he didn't remember him helping.

Rythian nodded, glancing around. “Do you think I could speak to Lalna privately?” he asked.

Honeydew and Xephos glanced at Lalna, who only shrugged a bit. Then they nodded and left the room.

Rythian carefully walked a bit closer to Lalna, not quite knowing how to act around him when he wasn't trying to kill him.

“You helped them?” asked Lalna cautiously.

Rythian nodded. “Well, I helped you,” he said, gesturing to the amulet. “I was the one who told them what the cure was.”

Lalna slowly nodded. “I was wondering how they figured that out... I'm guessing you also gave them the runes to capture the crystal?”

Rythian nodded.

“So... how much do you know, exactly...?”

“I know you're an Enderbeast,” he said, sounding casual. “I uh... I've encountered Enderbeasts before, so that's how I knew what would keep you alive.”

“So... the crystal didn't cure me?”

Rythian shook his head. “I'm afraid you'll never really be cured, but the crystal will keep you just as human as you were before.”

“What happens if I take it off?” asked Lalna, glancing at the crystal.

“If you took it off now, you'd probably die,” said Rythian. “But if you leave it on for about six more months, your body will eventually become immune to the poison, and it won't kill you if you take it off.”

Lalna narrowed his eyes a bit. “How... how do you know all this...?”

“I uh... I learned it the hard way.” Then he reached into the neck of his shirt and pulled out an amulet that looked exactly like Lalna's. 

His eyes widened. “Are you-”

Rythian shook his head. “No, no... My friend was poisoned, just like you. I figured out how to cure him, but by the time I got this and got back to him, it was too late...”

Lalna was quiet for a minute.

“Why did you save me?” he finally asked.

Rythian shrugged. “Because I knew how. Because it didn't seem fair to just let you die. Because I actually have a heart...”

Lalna smiled a bit.

“And besides,” said Rythian, suddenly realizing he didn't sound scary, “if anything is going to kill you, I want it to be me.”

“How thoughtful,” said Lalna dryly.

Rythian rolled his eyes a bit. He turned, looking like he was about to leave, but he stopped.

“Here,” he said, turning back and holding out his hand, where glowing purple smoke began to coalesce. A second later, runes appeared in the smoke. Then he tossed the cloud to Lalna, who held out his hand and caught it with ease.

“What's this?” asked Lalna, staring as the runes began to reform themselves into letters.

“It's a spell that'll help you keep your amulet hidden,” he said, slowly edging towards the door.

Lalna read the spell a couple times, then it disappeared. He looked down and saw that his amulet had disappeared as well. However, he could still feel it hanging around his neck.

“That spell also has a bit of a protection aspect to it,” said Rythian. “If anyone tries to take it from you while you still have the spell activated, they'll be electrocuted.”

Lalna nodded and looked up at him. “Thanks... Uh... do you think you could... not tell anybody about my... condition?”

Rythian nodded. “Wasn't planning on it.”

“Thanks,” said Lalna, not really knowing what else to say.

Rythian nodded. “I guess I'll see you around. Try to avoid dying in the meantime.”

Lalna smiled a bit, but when he looked up, Rythian had gone.

A second later, Xephos and Honeydew came back inside.

“You guys told Sips and Sjin not to tell anybody about what happened, right?” asked Lalna.

They nodded.

“I don't think they were planning on telling anybody,” said Honeydew. “They both seemed pretty traumatized.”

Lalna sighed. “So what happens now? Do we just... go back to normal? Pretend it never happened?”

Xephos shrugged. “That's our plan... What are you going to do?”

Lalna glanced down at where the amulet was. He forgot it was there for a moment.

“I'm never going to wake it up again...” whispered Lalna.

“Glad you have that option,” said Xephos.

Lalna nodded. They were all quiet for a minute before he stood up.

“Well, I don't know what we're doing standing around,” he said. “We've been gone for months, and I don't want to wait for everybody else to realize we're back.”

He started to walk towards the door, then he stopped and turned around with a smirk. “And besides, I could use a drink.”

Xephos and Honeydew smiled, and they walked out after Lalna, prepared to walk away from the memory of the Ender curse forever.


End file.
